


Everything Grows

by Everlark_Pearl



Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-11
Updated: 2012-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:17:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 48,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everlark_Pearl/pseuds/Everlark_Pearl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a pregnancy, everything grows. Love grows, fears grow, bonds grow, bellies grow and most of all, families grow. My take on Katniss and Peeta’s first pregnancy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stepping Stone

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hello, everyone! I am back with a brand new story. This is my version of the events that took place during Katniss' first pregnancy. I would recommend that you give my one shot "Things Never Envisioned" a read before tackling this story, but it's not needed to follow this one at all, it'll just prepare you a little bit for the impending angst.

I don’t know what it is about dinner that makes me look forward to it every night. Maybe it’s the calm and the quiet that signals the success of getting through another day. Maybe it’s the way Katniss always wears her hair down, gathering it up and letting it all fall over her left shoulder, and the way it makes her neck visible working together with the looks she gives me after taking bites of her food as though she is asking me to kiss her in the soft crook just how she likes it.

Maybe it’s the way we tell each other about our days. It’s a simple act, but it’s important to us. I tell her all of the things my best co-worker and close friend Hakan says when we open up the bakery that morning, and she tells me about her time in the woods that day, warning me of approaching storms or, like today, an impending cold snap. I will never understand how she does it though she’s tried to explain it time and time again. She has even gone as far as taking me outside, telling me to look at the sky and sniff the air, letting out loud, exasperated sighs when I tell her I don’t understand how the smell of the air means the weather is going to change. I take her word for it, though. She’s always right.

“So, a cold snap is coming, you say?” I ask her before shoving a spoonful of peas into my mouth and chew, waiting until my mouth is clear before speaking again. “It is late November, that isn’t exactly a shock.”

“Maybe I won’t tell you next time and let you walk out of the house underdressed.” Katniss replies sarcastically. “Would it be a shock then?” The right side of her mouth lifts up into a satisfied smirk before she puts her head down to try to hide it.

“That’s cruel.” I say with mock offense. “What if I died of hypothermia outside and you were left here to deal with Haymitch at dinner tomorrow night alone?”

“ _That_ would be what’s really cruel.” Katniss replies.

Maybe it’s none of those things. Maybe it’s just the knowledge that I have someone to come home to every afternoon and someone to have dinner with every night. That thought alone is comforting and even now threatens to make me smile. It has to be that.

We eat in silence for several minutes before I remember the story I wanted to tell her about the bakery today.

“Had an old woman come into the bakery this morning,” I tell her. She looks up at me and tilts her head to the left, exposing her neck even more, and I smirk, wondering if she even realizes what that does to me, before continuing. “She was looking for a job. You know we’re fully staffed. I didn’t know what to tell her, so I made up a filing job for her for the next few weeks. She’ll be in the office every morning during the week looking through the receipts for this last year and clearing things out to get ready for the New Year. She should have a job through Christmas.”

“What about after Christmas?” Katniss asks.

“I don’t know,” I shrug. “I’ll make up something else if I have to. I can’t make her sweep the floors or do the dishes; she’s too old for that kind of work now.” I haven’t thought about what I could possibly have her do when she finishes this task. I take another bite of food and look up at Katniss who is staring at me in such a strange way that it almost startles me.

Her head is still tilted to the left, and she’s smiling at me. Her eyes aren’t unreadable but they’re a mix of so many things that I can’t figure it out.

“What’s wrong?” I ask when I’ve stared back at her long enough to realize that I’m not figuring out this look on my own.

“Why are you so nice?” she asks, shaking her head. “You have every reason not to be, but you still are.” I don’t know how to answer that, so I just shrug in response. I try to go back to my food but I can still feel her eyes trained on me, staring at me with that look that is a mix of so many different things that I can’t even begin to try to understand what is going through her mind right now.

“What’s wrong, Katniss?” This time when I ask the smirk fades from her lips and her brow furrows before she looks away from me and to spot on the floor a few feet in front of her. I watch as she brings her arm up and props her elbow on the table, placing her fingers over her mouth as if they’ll help her say what is on her mind.

I say nothing, only continue watching her. I observe her face as it contorts into several more unreadable expressions and I notice when the tears begin to form, making her gray eyes glisten even from where I sit across the table. Just as I’m about to ask her once more what’s wrong, she turns to look up at me. The tears are still present, but she isn’t letting them fall and I can’t figure out what I could have possibly said to make her act this way. I didn’t tell her anything that I wouldn’t normally. She takes several deep breaths as she struggles to get whatever words she is trying to say from her head and to her mouth.

“Do you think we should?” She asks. Is that it? When she exhales loudly and throws her head back to look up at the ceiling, I know that can’t be it.

“Should we what?” I coax. “I can’t figure out what you’re trying to ask me, Katniss.”

“Have a baby…” The words come out so quickly and so mumbled that I’m not sure I heard her correctly.

“What?” That can’t be what I heard. We just talked about this again during the summer and the answer was still the same “no” that it has always been.

“Please don’t make me say it again.” Katniss pleads.

“I want to hear you say it again,” I tell her. “I need to know I heard you correctly.” She sighs and clenches her jaw before she speaks again.

“Do you think we should have a baby?” She doesn’t look at me once. The only thing I can do is assume she’s joking.

“I hope this isn’t your idea of a funny joke.” I reply. I try to sound firm, but my voice only sounds confused and tinged with anger.

“It isn’t.” Katniss shakes her head.

“Then you’re considering doing this to shut me up.” I state. She shakes her head again, still not looking at me.

“I wouldn’t do that, Peeta.” She sounds offended, and I’m trying to think of how this could possibly be happening.

“Then what is it? You have to talk to me. You can’t shut down right now.” I can’t help but raise my voice at her. There’s no way she is going to bring up something like that and then stop talking. She needs to explain herself.  “Look at me.”

“Do you remember…?” She starts, stopping to compose herself once more. “Do you remember that night last week when a dream woke me and I told you it wasn’t a nightmare?” I nod but don’t respond. “I have it a lot, just never that vivid before.”

“What’s it about?” I ask, keeping my voice low, almost to a whisper.

“Prim.” Katniss answers. I know that she notices the look on my face. “It wasn’t a nightmare,” she insists. “It was Prim as an adult, I know it was her.” She smiles slightly. “She was a doctor, a wife….” She looks away before finishing her sentence. “…a mother.”

“You can’t do this for her either, Katniss.” I remind her. “This has to be for you.”

“It is for me!” She snaps. “Just listen!”

“Then talk…” I say calmly. We’ve had this conversation far too many times for me to get hopeful. Every time I think we’re getting somewhere she shuts it down. I’ve learned now not to even take her seriously. The difference tonight though is that our roles seem to have been reversed. She is the one trying to reason with me while I’m the one shutting her down.

“When I first started having the dream I talked to Dr. Aurelius about them. I wanted to know what they meant, if anything at all.” Katniss explains. “He said maybe it was a message. Not from Prim but from my own mind.” She shifts uncomfortably before continuing. “Maybe my mind is trying to tell me something that I’ve been denying it for so long, and this is how it’s doing it.”

“I’m not following.” I say honestly.

“Prim wouldn’t have wanted me to be so afraid of this.” She replies.

“She would want you to be happy.” I add.

“That’s what Dr. Aurelius said.” She nods, almost sounding excited that I’m beginning to follow along. “She would want to see me with a family, be an aunt herself.” I didn’t have nearly enough time with Prim, but even I know this is true. “It made me question what I have been so afraid of.”

“What are you so afraid of?” I ask. I know the answer, I’ve heard it a thousand times before, but I want to hear it again. I want her to voice her fear. If she’s going to change her mind, it might as well be now and not a few weeks down the road. I couldn’t handle that.

“What if The Capitol reinstates The Hunger Games?” she says. I stand up and pull my chair around the table and set it next to her, going through the motions to support her the way I always do when this topic comes up.

“You can’t be afraid of things that don’t exist.” I take her hands in mine and squeeze them.

“You can’t say that it won’t happen.” Katniss reminds me.

“No, I can’t. I also can’t say I won’t break my neck after I slip and fall on some ice going to work tomorrow. Does that stop me from going to out in the cold weather?”

“What if something worse happens?” Katniss asks. “What if I fail another child the way I failed Prim?” I squeeze her hands tighter and shake my head.

“You did not fail Prim. Everyone thought she was safe.” She closes her eyes when I say this. I’m not sure what to make of it. None of this is new; we’ve said these things before, time and time again. Everything she has said about her fears is nothing I haven’t heard and yet I still sit here with her, hoping her decision will be different than it has been all these years.

“Lately I’ve been starting to feel like it’s an insult to Prim’s memory to be so afraid,” Katniss explains. “And to Finnick’s, Boggs’, Rue’s… everyone. We promised each other that we’d live well to make their deaths count.”

“We have, you know.” I remind her. She nods.

“But I just keep wondering what would have happened if she lived?” Katniss asks. This is new. I’ve never heard her talk this way before, and I don’t say anything that will stop her. “What if things ended differently? Would I still be so scared?”

“I don’t have an answer for you.” I admit. “You never wanted kids, though.” I can’t ignore that fact.

“Because of The Games.” She admits. “I never wanted to get married, either.” She reminds me, holding up her left hand where the wedding ring I had made for her 10 years ago is firmly seated on her finger.

“Well, you’re a different person now,” I grin. “Is that what you’re trying to say?” She nods and takes another deep breath, pulling her shoulders up and straightening her spine.

“Do you want this?” she asks. She sounds like a child. Her voice is small and afraid. She can’t possibly think I’d say no, can she?

“Of course I want this, you know that.” I tell her. “But this isn’t about only me. Do _you_ want this?” She is silent for a long time, the look on her face racked with a mix of something that could be realization or something entirely differently, like guilt over the fact that she has to tell me no again. I can’t be sure.

“Yes…” she manages to say a few minutes later. “Yes.” This time her voice is stronger and more confident. “I want this.” I try to keep a straight face, but it’s no use. The smile that spreads across it seems to radiate through my entire body. I squeeze Katniss’ hands with so much force that she yelps out in pain, forcing me to come back to reality, but my mind is still in a fog.

“So… what do we do?” I ask. Katniss crinkles her nose at my question and bites her lip to stifle a laugh.

“I think you know the answer to that.” I finally realize what my question sounded like and I shake my head wildly in attempts to correct myself.

“No!” I laugh, doing nothing to contain my excitement anymore. “What about your pill?” I ask.

“I guess I stop taking it.” Katniss shrugs.  “I’m not due for another dosage until January, though.” My shoulders deflate when I remember that Katniss’ birth control lasts for three months at a time and she just had her last dose in October; So much for starting right away.

“Do we tell anyone we’re going to be trying?” Now it’s Katniss who is shaking her head wildly.

“No. What if something goes wrong? I can’t have people looking at me like a wounded animal again. It took them long enough to stop the first time.” Her explanation makes sense, but I’m already bursting at the seams wanting to tell everyone I know that after fifteen years, Katniss finally agreed to try for a baby. “Do you think I should see the doctor first?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never made a baby.” I joke. This causes Katniss to stifle another laugh. I’m glad to see that she is in high spirits and able to appreciate a joke right now. If her attitude were anything but relaxed, I wouldn’t even be discussing this with her anymore. I refuse to have her regret this later and resent me for it.

“Are we really doing this?” I question out loud. It seems too good to be true and I need to hear it from her once more. “I need to hear you say it again.” Katniss tilts her head again, exposing her neck and she smiles.

“We’re really doing this, Peeta.”  


	2. Kickoff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I come bearing chapter 2! This one is in Katniss' POV and I want to talk about that quickly before I let you all at the chapter. I would like everybody to keep in mind that I am writing a 32-33 year old Katniss, not the 18 year old Katniss at the end of Mockingjay. By the epilogue, it was very clear that she grew a lot. She will always be less forthcoming than Peeta, but over time I believe she started to think and speak a lot like Peeta (as is evident in the epilogue as well).
> 
> This chapter is what I'm calling "the trying chapter", and it was kind of interesting as well as difficult to decide exactly how Katniss would talk about having sex with Peeta. There is not an actual full sex scene in this chapter, nor will there be in this story, but there will still be talks of sex. I wanted this chapter to reflect the eagerness, obstacles, fun, and disappointments of trying to conceive.
> 
> This is another short chapter, but they won't all be this length. These first few chapters will probably be the shortest ones as they're basically the primers for the pregnancy main event.
> 
> I will let you read now, please enjoy and review.

All I can think about is that sweet smile. The one that goes straight to his eyes and still knocks the wind out of me; that airy laugh he does when he is overcome. It’s like he’s letting out every ounce of happiness as slowly as he can, savoring it. I don’t tell him enough how much I love to see that look and hear that laugh, but that never deters him from doing it at just the right moment anyway.

It’s that smile and that laugh that I need right now. The steadiness of his hands on my back, letting me know that he’s here, and that we can get through anything, together. He’ll know how to make sense of everything I’m feeling right now long before I will.

I have lunch ready and on the table by the time he walks in the door. Today he gives me a show, shaking the snow out of his hair like a wet dog, then running his hand through it lazily, letting it fall haphazardly over his forehead; my eyes don’t leave him for a minute. He wipes his wet hand on his pants and kicks the snow off his boots before he takes them off and sets them next to the door.

I make it to him from the table in four large strides, and he looks up, almost alarmed to see me standing right in front of him. I notice that his hair is wet from the snow despite his attempts at shaking it out, and I reach up to run my fingers through it, pulling a piece away from his forehead that was stuck there. Then I press my lips to his, feeling and smelling the cold that he brought in with him, doing my best to warm him up.

“What was that for?” He asks when I pull away. “What’s up?” He can already tell that there’s something I need to talk to him about. Sometimes I hate it when he does that.

“Your lips are cold.” I answer, deciding not to answer his question just yet. As badly as I want to see his smile, I can’t find the words to tell him right here.  Instead, I cup his cheeks with my hands and shiver. “Your cheeks are cold too.”

“I’m going to share a secret with you,” he whispers into my ear.  “It’s January, and it tends to get cold.” He moves back and looks at me, smirking and cocking his eyebrow up. “And now you know my secret.” He adds sarcastically.

“Let’s eat.” I suggest. “It’s soup, to warm you up.” I’ll tell him while we’re eating. It shouldn’t be this difficult, and I want to slap myself for even making this of a big deal at all. We knew this day was coming, but as usual, now that’s it’s here; I’m having trouble finding the exact words.

“The only thing that’s going to warm me up right now is changing these wet clothes.” He answers. “Go ahead and get started, I’ll be right back down.” He moves quickly and loudly up the stairs, and I listen as his heavy footsteps settle on the side of the house where our bedroom is.

Rather than sitting down and starting to eat, I follow his lead and move up the stairs quickly and into the bedroom, intent on telling him about the phone call. He doesn’t even notice I’m sitting on the bed until he turns around to set his fresh clothes down. He only gives me a suspicious look before he begins to unbutton his shirt; his movements are slow and taunting, popping a button and looking at me with a grin while he pulls his shirt from his arms, then proceeds to grab the hem of his undershirt and pulls it over his head. When he pulls his wet pants off, I begin to forget why I even came up here in the first place until he starts to speak.

“So,” he says after he has stripped every piece of clothing off but his undershorts. “I told you my secret. Why don’t you tell me yours?”

“It’s not a secret,” I correct him, letting my eyes graze the plains of his bare chest for a second too long. I snap my head back up to look into his eyes, square my shoulders and force myself to focus on why I’m up here and what I need to tell him. “I got my reminder call this morning from Dr. Huld’s office.”

“For your pill.” He states. His eyes turn from playful to nervous and I know that he thinks I’m telling him I’m changing my mind.  

“I’m supposed to go on the 14th at 9am to get my next dosage.” He looks at me, waiting for me to continue. “I canceled it.”

“Really?” He sounds unconvinced and I don’t like it. It’s like he didn’t believe that I would go through with this, but the only person I can blame for that is me. I’ve given him little reason to believe I would ever really do this.  

“Really.” I confirm. I reach my hand out to him and he steps forward, taking my head in his hands, tilting my head up to look at him standing above me from where I sit on the bed.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” He asks. “You have to want this too.” I don’t know why he keeps acting as though I’m only doing this for him, but that’s probably my fault too.

“I want this, I told you that.” Rather than waiting for him to ask me to say it, I take the initiative and beat him to it. “I want a baby.” The nerves don’t even have a chance to grow before that smile I’ve been looking forward to spreads like a wildfire across his face, up into his eyes, and through his entire being. He pushes me back onto the bed and climbs on top of me.

“What day is it today?” He stares down at me, the smile never leaving his face.

“It’s the 12th.” I smile back. “That gives us two days.”

“So once the dose is missed then you can get pregnant?” He leans forward and kisses the crook of my neck.

“That’s what they told me on the phone.” I confirm. At that, his kisses become more frantic. I want to remind him that we still have two days, but instead I bury my hands in his still wet hair and let him go, using my feet to try to move off his undershorts down.

“Are we practicing?” he asks. I pull him down into another kiss; his lips have warmed up considerably, along with the rest of him. I guess we are practicing, and it’s entirely his fault.

 ***

When the time comes, there is no amount of practicing that could have prepared me for the drastic change in our love making. At first, I can’t quite put my finger on what is wrong. All I know is that Peeta acts differently, moves differently, and he even feels differently. It takes twice as long for him to finish, and most of the time I don’t finish at all.

“Something is different.” I confess to him after another night of the same disconnected love making that we’ve been having for almost two weeks.

“What do you mean?” Peeta asks. “With you?”

“With us,” I tell him sadly. I reach my hand out and run my fingers through his hair to keep him calm while I continue. “Where are you when we’re making love now?” I look straight into his eyes, trying to figure out where his head is at. “What are you thinking about?”

“What if we did it that time?” He sighs and extends his arm, resting his hand on my bare hip. “It’s all I can think about.”

“You can’t.”

“I know I can’t, but that doesn’t mean I can just stop it that easily.” His voice begins to rise in frustration. “I didn’t expect this to change things between us.”

“It doesn’t have to, you’re letting it.” I tell him. Usually, he’s the reasonable one. Taking the level headed role is a little foreign to me, but I don’t let him see that. “I want it to be the way it was before. The way we’d lose ourselves, remember that?” It hasn’t been long since it was like that, but the question seems to do the trick. Peeta closes his eyes, and licks his lips as I continue to run my fingers through his hair and whisper all of the things he used to do that he can’t seem to focus on anymore.

“I want that again.” His voice is gravelly.

“Take your own advice; don’t think, just feel.” I suggest.

Over the next few days, Peeta begins to take his own advice. Slowly at first, whispering to me as he moved above me, making sure that our minds were in the same place, far away from what we may actually be carrying out. Then quickly, taking me in any place that presents the opportunity.

Even now I feel my cheeks grow warm thinking about the morning he charged into the bathroom and lifted me up, propping me on the counter next to the sink and taking me there without doing anything more than lowering his undershorts just enough to enter me. That morning, he bit my neck so hard that Haymitch noticed the bruise that still lingered at dinner that night. I would have been mad at him if I didn’t like it so much.

The things he’s been saying to me when we make love now keep me longing for him all day. The way he instructs me to grab his hair in that gruff voice that I only hear at the most intense moments. He’s gone from one extreme to the other. From moving over me like his joints were immalleable, to not being able to get enough.

When my cycle that was due to begin on February 3rd is still absent by the 7th, I know I have to tell Peeta. We light a fire in the living room that night, and I make tea. After I hand him his mug, I sit down on the blanket he has laid out on the floor for us. I know what his intentions are, so just before he leans in to kiss me I stop him.

“Wait,” I put my hand up to his chest and stop him before he gets too close and I lose track of my intentions to tell him what is going on. “My cycle is late.”

“How many days?” his reaction is calmer than I expected it to be, and I smile knowing how hard he is probably trying to contain his hopefulness.

“Four days.” It’s not long by any means, but since my cycle started again after the war, I’ve been fairly regular, so four days raises red flags. I remember when women from The Seam would come to visit my mother, suspecting they were pregnant. “My mother always told women to wait until it’s a week late before getting too concerned or hopeful.”

“So we wait until the 10th?” Peeta asks. I can tell he doesn’t want to. He would run to town and get a test right now if he could.

“We can go into town on Saturday,” I suggest. “Have lunch, spend the day together, and get a test.” I smile at him, hoping the promise to spend the day in town with him will make him less eager to go get a test right away. The way he beams at me is all I need to know that it worked.

By the 10th, Peeta is practically jumping out of his skin every time I exit the bathroom. He looks at me, waiting for me to tell him if it started or not. By the time I slip into bed that night and confirm that nothing has started yet and we’ll be going into town to buy a test in the morning, he finally relaxes.

We never get to town. When I go into the bathroom to begin to wash up and get ready to leave, I can feel a slight cramping low in my belly and I know what it means. My cycle has started, 8 days late.

I walk out of the bathroom to see Peeta sitting on the edge of the bed tying his shoes. He looks up at me with that smile and I feel as though my heart is being ripped in two with the knowledge of the news I have to break. I shake my head sadly before I speak.

“It just started.” I whisper. I see the disappointment wash over his face and I lower my head. I can’t look at him right now, it hurts too much. Instead, I find myself sitting next to him on the edge of the bed and resting my head on his shoulder. He takes my hand in his and links our fingers together, moving his thumb across mine softly.

“Are you upset?” I ask, hating myself for getting him so hopeful for nothing.

“It’s fine,” he answers. “We get another month to try.” He tries to laugh, but all I can hear is the disappointment.

“You’re upset.” I say. How can he not be? He’s wanted this far longer than I have and the disappointment that I’m feeling is immeasurable. His must be even worse.

“It was our first try,” he says delicately, avoiding admitting that he is disappointed with the turn of events. “Just remember… there’s always next month.”

 


	3. Roadblock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peeta's POV

When seven months pass and Katniss still isn’t pregnant, it’s clear that she is heading to a dark place, very quickly. I try to keep myself collected in attempts to curb her thoughts of failure, but it is harder and harder to keep it together when I see that look on her face. It’s a familiar look now that at first means nothing more than disappointment. But soon, those disappointments turn into frustrations, and finally, worries. Month after month I tell her it’ll be fine, that it’ll happen any time now. I sit with her and do everything I can to convince her that she is not failing and that this is nobody’s fault; I keep calm while she falls apart. The truth is though; I’m not any better off than she is right now.

The silent house is far more noticeable now. It’s an environment that makes me feel like something has been stolen from me. Something I’ve never even had.  Something I may not ever have. Katniss moves around the house like a ghost. Every morning she leaves when I do and goes to the woods, and every afternoon she’s sitting on the porch waiting for me to get home. It’s like she can’t stand to be in the house alone anymore because she feels robbed as well.

I can see her now as I enter the Victor’s Village, sitting on the second step that leads the porch. Both feet firmly planted on the step below her, arms crossed over her knees and her head turned in my direction, searching.

Haymitch has never questioned why she sits out here every day and it’s better that he doesn’t, but I know he wants to. Sometimes she is out here for hours waiting. I don’t know if he can sense something in the quietness too, but he’s kept his distance. He comes for dinner three nights a week like he always has, but his stays are shorter and his remarks lighter. He’s giving us space even though we never asked him for it, and for that, I am grateful.

Katniss gives me a forced smile when I reach her on the steps. I sit down next to her and look at her face, and there’s trouble written all over it.

“You can cross September off.” She says. As soon as the words are out of her mouth we both look away from each other. I can’t look at her; I can’t let her see the disappointment that resides on my face. This is not her fault and the last thing I want to do is make her feel like it is. I stare off in the direction I came home from. “It started a couple of hours ago.”

I look down at my feet and notice the leaves that are beginning to gather around the edges of the steps. Bright yellow leaves tinged with red and orange; I pick one up and examine it before handing it to Katniss.

“We’re running out of summer.”  I tell her. “Are you going to sit out here all day waiting for me when it gets cold too?”

“I have a coat.” She retorts, turning the leaf over in her hand a few times. “It’s not like I’ve never been out in the cold before.”

“There’s no reason for you to sit out here all day, Katniss.”

“Well that’s where you’re wrong then.” She snaps, standing up and moving to one of the chairs on the porch. “Why don’t you go in there and sit with that quiet? Let it convince you that you’re not deserving of this and make you feel like you’re a failure.” I move to her quickly, shaking my head as I move toward her.

“Stop,” I say firmly. “Stop talking like that. You know none of that is true.” Her back hits the chair loudly and she looks up, fighting tears.

“It just seems so easy for everyone else. There were always at least half a dozen pregnant women at a time in The Seam. Someone was always coming to see my mother for advice.” Her voice wavers.

“You have no idea what their situations were,” I tell her. “You can’t compare.”

“Finnick and Annie.”  She states.

“Luck.”

“Luck that we don’t have, evidently.” I grab her hand and pull her up from the chair; she buries her head in my chest.

“It’s pointless to compare. Everyone is different.” I can say the words easily, but believing them is another story entirely. “Let’s go have lunch.” I urge, coaxing her to the doorway.

***

When I get to work the next morning, I wait around, staring at the clock on the wall. Hakan arrives an hour later and goes straight to work, mindlessly kneading dough while telling me a story about his wife.

“Hakan, why did you and Wren never have children?” I ask. I’ve known Hakan since I re-opened the bakery two years after the war and I’ve never asked him why he and his wife never had kids, and he’s never offered to tell me. I immediately feel like I’ve overstepped my boundaries. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”

“It’s fine, Peeta,” He says; with a wave of his hand he sprinkles flour onto the floor and continues. er HerHer “Wren can’t get pregnant,” Hakan says with a shrug. “Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not like we didn’t want them or didn’t try, it just never happened.”

“How long did you try?” I ask. I shouldn’t be asking him this stuff. It’s none of my business and he’s not stupid. He’ll want to know why suddenly after all these years, I am asking him about it.

“How long have we been married?” he chuckles. “Of course we’re far too old now, but we tried the whole time.” I want to feel bad for him. I want to tell him that I’m sorry that it never worked out for them, but the only thing I can think about is me and Katniss 25 years from now in a house that lingers with the ghosts of our children that never were.

“How long did you try before you suspected something was wrong?” I know I’ve gone too far asking this, but I have to know. The vision of growing old with Katniss was a sweet one until that vision turned into the one I see now after Hakan’s confession.

“About two years,” Hearing this is nice, but does nothing to calm me down. “Things were different when we first started trying,” Hakan begins. “There wasn’t a medical center for Wren to go to like there is now, and going to see the healers in town was something we couldn’t afford. We did go see Katniss’ mother, though.” I forget sometimes that Hakan is from The Seam. Katniss knew of him as soon as I mentioned who I’d hired when I was preparing to open the bakery. “Katniss had to be about three years old.” He smiles. “Cute as a button.” At this, I crack my first real smile in weeks.

“Did you ever find out what was wrong?” I ask.

“She just isn’t built like other women. It would have been a miracle if she got pregnant.” Hakan explains.

“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.

“Hey, it’s not your fault.” He laughs. I glance up at the clock again and see that it’s after eight. The medical center should be open now. I excuse myself and walk to my office, closing the door behind me.

Pulling open my desk drawer I lift out the small phone book, laying it flat on the top of the desk and flipping through the pages to get the number of the medical center. I find the main number and dial it, listening as a woman answers the phone, greeting me with mock enthusiasm. I ask her to connect me to Dr. Huld’s office and she complies, quickly putting the line on hold.

“Dr. Huld’s office.” Says another woman with the same forced tone.

“Hi, I was wondering if Dr. Huld was available to answer a few questions.” I ask.

“She’s with a patient right now, but I could have her call you back when she’s free.” The woman suggests and I agree, giving her my name and the number of the bakery. She tells me that Dr. Huld will call as soon as she has a free moment.

“I leave at noon,” I tell her. “And I’m back here tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll note that with your message.” The woman says flatly before hanging up. I leave the office and make my way back to the front of the bakery. Hakan is taking care of a line of customers and I spot two more getting up from the tables to leave.

“Sorry, I didn’t know it got busy.” I apologize. “I had to make a phone call.” I look forward and point to a woman behind the customer Hakan is helping. “What can I get you?”

Every time the phone rings, I run to it and answer it before Hakan can, but it is never Dr. Huld. Frustrated, I start to clear out some of the garbage cans around the bakery, pouring them all into a larger bag before taking it out to the dumpster.  As I walk back in the door, Hakan is waiting for me.

“Phone call.” He says. “Dr. Huld she said her name was.” He gives me a suspicious look, but I ignore it.

“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll take it in the office.” When I’m sure the other line is hung up, I begin to speak. “Dr. Huld?”

“Mr. Mellark,” Dr. Huld says in greeting. “How can I help you?”

“This is confidential, right?” I ask. The last thing I need is Katniss finding out that I called the doctor about our troubles. I have her best interest at heart, but I’m afraid she won’t see it that way.

“Of course.” She answers.

“My wife and I have been trying to get pregnant since January, but we haven’t yet. Should we be concerned?” I could have worded that a little more eloquently to make myself sound less naïve, but I’m too nervous anticipating her answer to worry too much about sounding wise.

“I suggest trying for a year before becoming concerned.” Dr. Huld says. A year. We still have time.

“And let’s say we are still not pregnant by next January. What happens then?” I question.

“You and your wife can come here to my office and we’ll try to find the problem.” Dr. Huld answers. “We’ll run tests on both of you and then go from there, but don’t worry about that at the moment.  After being on birth control for many years, as Katniss has, it may take time for her body to adjust to being off of it.” Her using Katniss’ name makes me freeze. I didn’t expect anonymity, she has been Katniss’ doctor for 11 years, but there is something about her using Katniss’ name that makes me uncomfortable. The only thing that helps is how unconcerned she sounds about everything.

“Thank you, Dr. Huld.” I say, having nothing left to ask.

“You’re welcome, Peeta.” I can’t be sure, but I think I can hear a smile in her voice. I hang up the phone but don’t leave my desk. I start to think ahead to January. What if Katniss still isn’t pregnant by then? Would she agree to go to see Dr. Huld about it?

What kind of problems would they test us for, and how? What if the problem is entirely my fault? What if The Capitol did something before The Quell as punishment for telling all of Panem that Katniss was pregnant? Or worse… what if they did something to Katniss? The thought of them doing anything like that to her makes my blood boil; I can’t seem to focus on anything but my anger for a Capitol that doesn’t even exist anymore. The knock on the door causes me to jump.

“Peeta, I’m sorry to bother you but this mixer out here is jammed and I can’t get it to budge. I’m going to need some help.” Hakan says from the other side of the closed door.

“You can open the door.” I reply. The door swings open and Hakan pokes his head in.

“Everything alright in here?” He asks. “Dr. Huld, huh? Isn’t that a baby doctor?”

“Hakan, please…” I start.

“You and Katniss trying to get pregnant?” he asks with a smile, ignoring me.

“Hakan!” I yell. His face falters quickly at the sound of my voice. “Mind your business!” I shouldn’t take this out on him, and I instantly feel terrible, and after what he shared with me earlier, I feel even worse. “Please.” I add, lowering my voice.

“Sorry…” Hakan says, not looking at me.

“I need a few minutes, okay?” I ask, trying to remind myself that this isn’t Hakan’s problem or his fault and I shouldn’t be yelling at him for it. “I’ll be out to help you soon.”

***

The next two weeks seem to fly by. I start inviting Haymitch over for dinner more to keep the quiet in the house from consuming us. One night, after he leaves, Katniss and I start a fire in the living room and spread out on the couch.

She is resting her head on my lap, and I have my eyes closed, letting my dinner settle in my stomach and getting lost in the sounds of the crackling fire when Katniss’ voice cuts through it.

“It’s almost October. This is never going to happen for us, is it?” she asks. I open my eyes and try to figure out where this question came from. “I don’t deserve a baby.” At this statement, I look down at her. Before I can answer her she lifts her head from my lap and sits up, turning to me. “I don’t deserve you, either. And you deserve someone that can make you a father.” She hasn’t spoken like this in a long time, and it worries me. She seems to be reverting back to an old version of herself. The self-loathing girl that feels she’s deserving of nothing and living in constant fear of being abandoned again.

“You’re the only person I’ll ever want this with.” I tell her. She doesn’t get it and maybe she never will. I don’t want to be a father for the sake of being a father. “I want to start a family, with _you_. Nobody else.”

“And if I can’t?” Katniss asks. Her tone is defensive and it breaks my heart. She’s trying to build up her walls again and the longer this goes on, the more powerless I am to stop it.

“Then it’ll just be you and me.” I tell her. “Having you is a blessing. Everything else is a bonus.” I reach out to her and run my fingers along her neck; she sighs.

“I never thought I’d want this so badly.” She confesses. “All those years I spent fearing it, and now that I want this it isn’t happening. Every month I mourn for a person that was never there to begin with.” With that I move my hand to her back, pull her to me, and kiss her deeply. I feel her body melt into mine as she moves her arms from her sides and begins to touch anywhere she can reach. She’s just about to reach for my belt when I stop her. I stand up from the couch and pull her up after me.

“Come on,” I whisper. “Let’s go upstairs.”


	4. Autumn

“Are you going to get out of bed?” Peeta’s voice rings through the bedroom, waking me up. The alarm already went off, and Peeta has already showered. I lift my head off the pillow and struggle to focus on his form standing in the frame of the bedroom door, towel around his waist, his hair still wet and dripping down his face, but my eyes just want to close again.

“No.” I groan, falling back onto the pillow and closing my eyes again. I can still feel Peeta standing there but make no effort to say anything else. I’m not even sure I could if I tried. When I hear Peeta sigh, and close the door lightly behind him, I let myself drift back to sleep.

When my eyes open again and look at the clock on the bedside table, I see that I slept for another three hours. This time, I force myself to get out of bed and pick out clothes for the day. Slowly, I strip down to nothing, looking at myself in the full length mirror that is situated next to the closet. The scars have faded through the years, but still remain. Mismatched, patchy, and slightly raised; I question every day how Peeta can find this attractive.

My breasts, which I normally find too small look slightly larger today and I close my eyes tightly in attempts to shake away the fuzz that is still lingering in my head, trying to lure me to crawl back under the covers and sleep until Peeta comes home. When I open my eyes, my breasts look the same. My mind wasn’t play tricks on me.

 Briefly I wonder if Peeta noticed the difference until I remember that I haven’t given him the chance. We haven’t made love in a week because all I do is sleep. I even started falling asleep at the dinner table last night before Peeta roused me awake, took my food away, and walked me to the couch to lie down until we retired upstairs where I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Even though my cycle isn’t due to start for another three days I know something isn’t quite right, but I haven’t let myself think about it. What if I’m wrong again? What if this is another month where nothing is actually happening at all? I won’t allow myself think that way again. Not yet. And Peeta can’t know. I won’t do this to him again. I don’t know how much longer I can stand to see him look at me the way he does, struggling to keep his face indifferent but failing and letting his disappointment show. He wants this so badly and if we can’t do this, I don’t know what I’ll do.

He thinks this is just another one of my breakdowns, and for the moment, I prefer it that way. The other morning he turned off the alarm, but didn’t get out of bed. Instead he moved in close to me and pressed his body to mine. Even though I could feel his morning arousal, I knew that wasn’t why he was holding me. His hold on me was soft and warm, and his hands did nothing more. It’s what he does on days when he knows better than to ask how today is.

For once, he is wrong. I’m not having a string of bad days like he assumes. I haven’t fallen down into the dark hole where the nightmares take over and I shut everyone out. I’m not lying around staring at the wall, only knowing what time it is by the way the shadows move across the room. It’s none of that. It’s not even close to that, but how would he know? Outwardly, my symptoms are no different, but on the inside, rather than my body feeling like it’s shutting down and being buried by grief and the dead, my body feels like it’s taxing itself, working every muscle and bone to its limit to create something. For once, my body is doing what it’s supposed to do.

I pull on my underclothes and immediately notice the discomfort of my bra. The pressure against my breasts is palpable. I ignore it and pull the rest of my clothes on and head down the stairs to fix myself breakfast, but Peeta’s already done it for me. On the table he has a covered plate, a fork, a glass of orange juice, and a note that simply says “Please eat something.”

He’s going through the motions. When I break down, I don’t eat; when I don’t eat, he begs me to. He’s used to it by now, but when he comes home he’ll notice that the plate of eggs, bacon, and toast that he set down for me before he left is gone and I’m not still upstairs in bed the way I usually am. It may make him wonder what is different this time.

I shovel the food into my mouth cold, not bothering to warm anything up. I’m too hungry, and when I’ve finished I wash my plate, tuck Peeta’s note into my pocket, and ignore my hunting boots, choosing instead to walk into the living room and drop onto the couch. The food feels like a rock in my stomach and it does nothing to give me the energy I was hoping it would so I could get to the woods today.

When I wake up again, Peeta is shaking my shoulder.

“Hey,” he greets me with a sideways smile, lifting my legs and sitting down on the couch before laying them over his lap. “Did you go to the woods today?” He asks, surveying my clothes.

“No,” I shake my head. I give a stretch and feel my muscles loosen, but the pressure and restriction that my bra is causing is even more noticeable now. “But at least I put my clothes on.” I say, attempting a joke, but Peeta doesn’t find it very funny. He is giving me that look that I hate. The look that he only gives me when I have a breakdown; it’s full of sorrow and concern.

I don’t know which look I hate more. This one he’s giving me right now, or that disappointed look that he has been trying to hide every month since February. I briefly wonder if it’s worth hiding my suspicions from him, he’ll be upset either way, but just as I’m getting ready to say something to him, I see that other face so clearly in my mind that is causes me to stop. That look is much worse than this one is. He can’t know yet. I can’t dangle the carrot in front of him again and rip it away. I need to know for sure before I tell him.

A week later, I send Peeta to the bakery with a kiss and a smile; he looks at me confused but doesn’t complain. When he leaves, I run back to the bedroom, making sure that he left the windows open and dive under the covers, pulling the duvet up over me in a heap. The heaviness helps me sleep when Peeta isn’t here. I can close my eyes and let the warmth fill me up the same way he does. This vision of Peeta knows that my cycle is four days late and he’s holding me, letting me know that this is really happening this time. He’s telling me not to worry, everything will be just fine.

If I could only tell the real Peeta what is happening. I’ve come close on nights when he stares at me too long, but something continues to hold me back. I’ve been forcing myself out of bed every morning and fighting the sleep that threatens to claim me as we eat breakfast together so that he doesn’t start to question me. If I try to act as though things are getting better, he may not ask questions.

Five nights later, my luck runs out. As I force myself to chew my potatoes instead of close my eyes, Peeta’s voice pierces the air and forces me to look up at him.

“Are we still trying for a baby?” He’s holding his fork, but it’s clear he hasn’t touched his food. I set my own fork down and stare at him for a long time, unsure of what to say, feeling the guilt creeping up my throat, but I say nothing and his voice fills the room again. “Because how are we supposed to get pregnant if we’re not _trying_?” The way he emphasizes the last word causes me to look away from him. If I look away, maybe the urge to tell him that I think we already are pregnant will go away. 

“Tonight...” I say, finally looking back at him. “We can try tonight.” I wish that I could put more enthusiasm into my voice, but my sentence comes out sounding indifferent. Making love is the last thing I want to do right now, but if it will keep Peeta from questioning me any further, I will do it.

“Do you even want this anymore?” I can’t be sure, but I think he’s trying not to cry. His eyes don’t show it, but his voice does. “You don’t tell me anything anymore. I don’t know if you’re upset because of what’s happening or mad at me for not being able to do this for us.” Peeta usually says all the right things, but today, all he is saying are the wrong things. With every word that comes out of his mouth I feel more and more guilty that I am keeping this from him; I can’t do this much longer.

He’s going to suspect something soon. He knows that I tell him every month when my cycle starts and though he doesn’t know the exact date when it is due every month, he knows approximately when it’s supposed to start, and the fact that nine days has come and gone without the slightest hint of it, I know my days are numbered.

I get through the next four days by pushing myself even harder to act as if nothing is wrong. I wake up at the sound of the alarm, stopping Peeta from getting out of bed by putting my arms out to him. He scoots over and lines his body up with mine before burying his head in the crook of my neck and kissing my collarbone. I tangle my hands in his hair as he does this and try to think of anything but my cycle that is now almost two weeks late, and the baby that may possibly be growing in its place.

We make love every morning, but one morning when he reaches out to grab one of my breasts I can’t stop the hiss that comes out of my mouth from the pain it causes; he freezes as soon as he hears it.

“Did I hurt you?” He asks. His concerned face has me immediately shaking my head frantically.

“You just grabbed a little too hard.” I lie. He didn’t grab me any harder than he usually does, but my breasts feels like they’ve been set on fire without anyone touching them at all, grabbing them the way he just did feels like he poured gasoline on me. There’s no way that I will convince him that he didn’t hurt me. Nobody makes a sound like that out of pleasure. His face grows even more concerned at this, and he’s just getting ready stop everything when I wrap my legs around his waist in attempts to keep him there. “I’m alright, Peeta.” He doesn’t look convinced. He has a perpetual fear of hurting me again, hyper-sensitive to even my smallest winces at his hand. He will never forgive himself for those times he tried to harm me.

I could take a test. No – I should take a test. Then I can tell Peeta and put a stop to this floundering dance that we’ve been doing. Everything will be out in the open, the way it should be, but I can’t. I am terrified to find out. Not because of what it may mean, but because of what it may not mean.

Instead, I force myself to go into the woods. The late October chill causes my cheeks to feel tight, but it’s a welcome feeling. I haven’t left the house in weeks, and having my bow back in my hands, with my sights on a large waterfowl relaxes me. For the first time in almost a month the nagging thoughts of what is happening with my body disappear and all I can think about is the dinner I’m going to make with this catch.

I take my game home and have it plucked in no time, gathering the feathers in a pile and putting them in the trash before removing its feet and wings. I reach for my knife, gripping it tightly as I straighten out the waterfowl and place it at the neck, severing it quickly, throwing the neck into the bowl and mindlessly making an incision down its body. I’ve done this dozens of times before, but today, when the smell of blood hits my nose I have to step away from the sink as my stomach begins to churn. Moving away does nothing and things only get worse. I make a dash to the bathroom and make it just in time, expelling whatever was left of my breakfast into the toilet.

I shake my hands hysterically, forcing the gloves I was wearing off and onto the floor so I can push my hair out of my face before retching once more. My cheek is flat on the side of the bowl as I wait to make sure the worst of the churning has subsided. When I hear the front door close I realize that Peeta’s home; I hear him call for me. He probably noticed the half prepared waterfowl in the sink.

“I’m in the bathroom!” I manage to call out, doing my best to disguise the fatigue in my voice. This seems to satiate him. When I finally manage to pull myself up off the floor, rinse my mouth and exit the bathroom, I see Peeta at the sink, finishing the job I started. I am so glad I taught him how to do this a few years ago.

As he works, I stand back, putting my hand up to cover my nostrils when his back is turned, so that I don’t smell the blood anymore. Once Peeta has disposed of everything, I move closer, inspecting his work.

“You’re getting very good at that,” I compliment him. “Thank you for finishing it.” My voice is heavy with gratitude, more than it should be, but I refuse to tell him that he just saved me from vomiting all over our dinner. Not until I see the doctor.

The next morning while Peeta’s at the bakery, I call Dr. Huld’s office to make an appointment. Just as I begin to think that hiding this from Peeta will be over soon, I’m told that I can’t get an appointment until November 5th – Ten days from now. I agree to the appointment, telling the woman on the other end of the line that I’ll be there at 9am.

Maybe I should just tell Peeta now and he can come with me. I want him there, I don’t know if I could do this without him there, but what if it’s bad news? Do I really want to see his face at that moment? He doesn’t deserve more bad news and if I don’t know for sure that everything is alright, I can’t take the chance of telling him.

I’ve almost stopped eating entirely by the morning of my doctor’s appointment. Peeta’s looking at me in all the wrong ways as I sit at the table meal after meal, elbows on the table and my shirt sleeve over my nose so I don’t have to smell the food. He opens his mouth several times to speak that morning, but nothing ever comes out. _Just a few more hours, Peeta and I’ll either give you the best news of your life, or break your heart again._

When the nausea consumes me and Peeta hasn’t left yet, I try my best to make it to the bathroom quickly without him noticing my haste. I slam the door behind me, turn the sink on full blast and crumble to the floor in front of the bowl, gripping the sides as I heave what little of my breakfast I was able to get down while being careful not to be too loud. Any noises I make now are being drowned out by the rushing of the water.

Two, three more times I retch and the pain it causes my sides in agonizing. There’s nothing left in my stomach but the heaves do not stop and soon, I’ve had enough. I am defenseless against the tears and sobs that replace the heaving. I pick myself up from the floor and make my way to the sink, coating a wash cloth in warm water before wiping down mouth and face. No matter what, this ends today. I can’t do this alone anymore. I need Peeta’s voice and the warmth of his body to guide me through this; to calm my mind while my body ebbs and flows from one ache to the next.

By the time I compose myself and walk out of the bathroom, Peeta is pulling his coat over his shoulders and pulling his bag off its hook. Silently, I walk to him and press my body to his.

“I just need to feel you right now.” I croak. The tears threaten to return, so I stop talking and burying my face in his neck. His arms embrace me and the warmth I was seeking is there instantly. I don’t want to let him go right now. I want to stand here just like this for hours and tell him everything, but soon he’s pulling away from me.

“Gotta go.” He whispers, brushing his thumb over my cheekbone. “I’ll see you in a few hours.” I watch him turn and walk out the door before moving to the living room window, staring at his form until I can no longer see him.

The nausea stays with me long after Peeta leaves. I go back and forth from couch to bathroom floor, sitting on the cold tile one last time before I leave, but nothing ever comes. I can’t decide if this or the vomiting is worse.

I attempt to make myself look somewhat presentable, but it’s not use. I look as awful as I feel. No wonder Peeta looks so sad when he looks at me lately. I ignore my coats hanging next to the door and instead choose one of Peeta’s. I shrug into it and pull it tightly around me; it’s warm and smells like him, and I instantly begin to feel calmer. If I can’t have Peeta with me in person today, then his coat that is almost as warm as he is will have to do.

Slowly, I walk to the medical center, pulling Peeta’s coat around me tighter and tighter as I fight against wind and nausea, wishing now that I had eaten more of my breakfast. Maybe if I had more come up earlier, I wouldn’t feel so sick right now.

When I finally make it to Dr. Huld’s office, I’m greeted warmly by the woman at the front desk. She instructs me to have a seat and tells me I should be going to a room momentarily. There is one other woman waiting; her stomach protrudes like she’s ready to give birth at any moment, and when our eyes lock I do not see judgment or intrigue over why I’m sitting there like I expected, I see understanding. She gives me a sympathetic smile before speaking.

“Nauseous?” she asks, smiling again when I nod.  “I thought you looked a little green. You’re married to the baker, right?” I nod a second time and pull Peeta’s coat tighter still. “Bread. Eat bread. If you want a treat, toast it without butter and eat it that way. It helps. I was eating two loaves a day, and when I finally told Mr. Mellark why I was there buying bread every day, he started giving me one of the loaves free.” Every time someone calls him Mr. Mellark, I can’t help but think of his father, but I know she must be talking about Peeta, and he would do something like that. “My name’s Sauda, you’re lucky. You can have him make you fresh bread whenever you want.” I smile when I realize she’s right.

A door opens next to me and two nurses peer out. “Sauda Luned?” says the first. Sauda struggles, but finally manages to get up from her chair.

“Best of luck.” She says, as she waddles through the door. I wish her the same before she is gone.

“That leaves Katniss Mellark.” The second nurse says. I pull myself up and out of the chair and follow the nurse to the scale. “You’ve gained three pounds since you were here last October.” I’m hardly surprised. She leads me to a white exam room, and I note that every exam room in this office looks exactly the same, down to the posters on the walls of fetuses in their mothers’ wombs.

The nurse instructs me to hop up on the table so she can take my vitals. Blood pressure and temperature, both normal. That does surprise me, considering how nervous I am.

“What brings you here today, Mrs. Mellark?” she finally asks, pulling a pen from her pocket and looking at my chart. They never did ask me why I needed an appointment on the phone.

“I think I may be pregnant.” I answer, feeling my mouth fill with saliva. I realize that this is the first time I’ve voiced my suspicions out loud, and the words stun me.  At my answer, the nurse nods and begins writing on my chart.

“Did you take a home test?” she questions. I tell her no and she nods again, writing more. “When was your last period?”

“September 14th,” I answer. I notice a small smile appear on the nurse’s face “I was too scared to take a test.” I blurt out. I don’t know what makes me say it, but I stop myself from going any further. She assures me that I’m not the first person to admit that before going back to her chart.

“Considering you haven’t had a period in almost two months, I think we’re in the clear for a urine test. No needles.” She smiles. My fear of needles is noted on my chart, I made them put it there long ago. I agree to her suggestion and she gets me a cup, telling me to fill it up and bring it back to her. Once I’m finished and have the cup sealed and handed over, she informs me that the doctor will be back shortly to give me the results.

While I wait, I use the quiet time to try to figure out how I’m going to tell Peeta, no matter what the results are. Do I just blurt it out? _“Peeta, I’m pregnant.”_ Softly, I say these words out loud, and my breath catches in my throat at the sound of it. Do I make it special? He would. Light a fire, lay down a blanket on the floor and tell him there?

What if I’m not pregnant? The chances of that being true at this point are slim, but what if something is wrong and I have been mistaking the symptoms for pregnancy? I don’t get a chance to think any further on that, because just as I’m getting ready to entertain the idea of terminal illness, Dr. Huld is tapping at the door.

“Congratulations” is the only word that I hear or need to hear to know what she is trying to tell me. Without even realizing it, my body tenses. I can see Dr. Huld’s mouth moving, but I hear no sound coming out. All I can think about now is that something is wrong with the baby. Every bit of relief that I’ve found today that involved finally telling Peeta disappear and is replaced with the dread of having to tell him that I was pregnant, but something was wrong.

“Katniss? Is everything alright?” I begin to hear Dr. Huld again and I lift my head up quickly to look at her. I want to tell her no. No, everything is not alright, and it won’t be alright until I know for sure that this baby is ok. Instead, I nod. “You told the nurse your last period was September 14th, is that correct?”

“Yes…” I answer quietly. She is looking down at her chart, marking things for several minutes before she looks back up to me.

“Alright, Katniss, if you could lie back on the table for me, please?” she says kindly. I do as I’m told and she lifts my shirt halfway, placing her hands on my abdomen. She pushes down lightly.

“Will that hurt the baby?” I ask.

“No, the baby will be just fine, and from what I can tell and the date of your last period, you’re right around 7 weeks 3 days pregnant. As things proceed you may measure earlier or later than that, nothing is set in stone.” She explains before going back to her chart. “I’ve got your estimated due date of June 21st written on my chart.”

It sounds so far away. So impossible. I can’t stop my body from trembling at the thought of all of the time that I have to spend wondering if this baby is alright. I can see the look of concern wash over Dr. Huld’s face as she pulls my shirt back down.

“What’s wrong, Katniss?” she takes me hand which causes her own to begin trembling from the sheer force of my unsteadiness.

“How do I tell my husband?” I ask. “How do I tell him if there’s a chance this baby won’t be alive?” Dr. Huld’s brow furrows and she tilts her head to the side, confused.

“What is causing you to believe the baby isn’t alive? Have you been bleeding?” She asks. I shake my head at her question. “Has anything happened to lead you to that conclusion?” I shake my head again and she takes a deep breath. “Katniss, there is absolutely no reason for you to be concerned.”

“How can you be sure?” And how can she? She has done nothing but touch my stomach. There’s no way she can know.

“I could have one of my nurses give you an ultrasound.” She offers. “I don’t normally like to do this for another few weeks, but I can’t send you home in this state.” I nod at her suggestion and she quietly moves to the cabinets in the corner of the room, grabbing a gown for me to put on. I begin to strip down immediately, and Dr. Huld leaves the room, leaving me alone as I struggling to take my clothes off while still trembling from head to toe.

She returns after what feels like hours with a nurse following behind her, wheeling in a cart with a large machine that looks like a television. Dr. Huld is back at my side and lets me know she is going to stay here to make sure that I’m alright and can be discharged while the nurse wordlessly plugs in the machine and starts it up. She places a soft, white sheet over my lower half and instructs me to lift my legs and place them in the stirrups at the end of the table.

“When you’re further along we can do an abdominal ultrasound, but it’s very early still and the best way right now is to insert a probe to get the best look.” If this is the way it has to be done to ensure that I tell Peeta good news tonight, I don’t mind. I look at the ceiling and listen to the nurse shuffling around with the equipment.

“Mrs. Mellark, you’re going to feel some pressure.” The nurse says a few minutes later, she gently folds the sheet back slightly and moves the probe toward me; I close my eyes anticipating the discomfort. Then it’s silent again. There is no talking, nobody explaining to me what is happening and I feel myself grow even more afraid. I close my eyes and try not to let the silence consume me.

“Katniss,” Dr. Huld says. “Katniss, look at the screen.” I open my eyes and turn my head to the screen, seeing nothing but black and grey shapes. The nurse points to a black oval on the screen.

“This black area is the gestational sac.” I don’t know what that is, but I nod anyway. “See this little gray blob right here?” she asks.

“Yes.” I answer, squinting to see the tiny bean shape.

“That’s your baby.” She tells me. “Let me zoom in so you can see it better.” She hits a few buttons on the machine and the small bean shape gets larger. “Look right here, Mrs. Mellark. Do you see that movement?” she points at a spot in the middle. I nod, too fixated on this little shape to speak. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat.”

I stare at the spot, unable to tear my eyes away. I watch the rhythmic movement of it, and for the first time since Dr. Huld confirmed that I am pregnant, I stop trembling.

“Do you want to hear it?” The nurse asks.

“Please.” I answer, smiling in spite of myself.

With a few more clicks on the machine, a swooshing sound fills the air and amidst the swooshing I can hear the unmistakable sound of a heartbeat. The baby is alive.

“That’s a nice, strong heartbeat.” Dr. Huld notes, speaking for the first time since this began. “Flora, can you print a picture for her to take home to her husband?” She looks down at me before speaking again. “I think Peeta would want a picture, don’t you?” Not only would he want a picture, he’d die for it.

The nurse known as Flora prints out a picture and hands it to me, finally removing the probe and after a quick cleanup, and a parting congratulations, she moves the machine out of the room.

“You can go ahead and get dressed now. I’ll meet you at the front desk to schedule your next appointment and talk to you about what will happen then, okay?”

I leave the room feeling more relaxed than I have in weeks; I touch the pocket of Peeta’s coat where the picture of our baby resides. Dr. Huld wants to see me again at 10 weeks for a more thorough visit. The woman at the front desk pencils me in for November 26th and Dr. Huld gives me a run-down of what will happen that day and sends me home.

The wind that was present on my walk to the medical center is still present when I leave; it threatens to push me forward as I walk. For the moment, the nausea has been replaced by hunger, but all I can think about is seeing Peeta, showing him the picture in my pocket, and asking him to make me a fresh loaf of bread.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I contemplated making up a very high tech, Captiol designed version of an ultrasound machine, but in the end decided to go with what I knew best, so Katniss just had a very traditional, modern day ultrasound. With a sweet little picture print out of her and Peeta's little bean :) I hope you enjoyed.


	5. The Calm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The wait is over. Peeta is finally about to find out what is going on. Another Katniss POV, but we'll hear from Peeta again in chapter 6 before it goes right back to Katniss in chapter 7. Peeta gets his time closer to the end of the chapter, but Katniss needs to be the one to get us there.

_Add squash and cook for twenty minutes –_ I read the recipe over and over as I move around the kitchen setting the table. The sounds of bowls clanging together echoes off the walls and the bubbling soup on the stove that would ordinarily smell delicious is making my stomach churn once again, but moving around helps take my mind off of it.

I have fifteen minutes to take a shower and put on fresh clothes before I have to finish the soup. I wash quickly, throw on a pair of gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt, both of which are Peeta’s, and head back down the stairs, stopping at the coat rack next to the front door to fish the picture I got this morning out of the pocket of Peeta’s coat.

 _You have your own clothes, Katniss._ I can hear Peeta’s joking tone clearly in my head as I look down at the outfit that hangs from my frame. It’s the same thing he says to me every time I wear his clothes. _But yours are more comfortable, Peeta._ Maybe I should have dressed nicer; make lunch from scratch, shower, pick out a nice outfit with care. It sounds charming in theory, but between making sure this soup doesn’t burn and trying not to vomit, the nice outfit part of the plan does not make it into the final preparation. 

I carefully place the picture in the pocket of the sweatpants and move back to the stove, pulling the pot off of the burner and grabbing the handheld blender, using it to puree the soup before returning the pot to the burner to keep heated until Peeta gets home.

I’m in high spirits, despite how awful I feel. Between what I learned today and finally being able to tell Peeta everything that has been going on, I can’t feel anything but relief between the waves of nausea and incessant fatigue that have now become commonplace.

Peeta sniffs the air when he walks in the door and smiles as he homes in on me sitting at the table in his clothes, slowly chewing a piece of bread I grabbed from the basket in the middle of the table. Sauda was right; it does help – at least a little bit.

“You look comfortable,” Peeta says walking towards me. My breathing hitches as he gets closer when I imagine what his reaction will be to the news that I’ve been dying to tell him for weeks. I keep my eyes trained on him, smiling through the nerves; he kisses the top of my head and inhales deeply. “And your hair smells good too.” He moves his head down and kisses my cheek before moving to my neck; I have to put my hand on his chest to stop him.

“Not now,” I tell him, my tone playful. “Go sit, I made soup out of the squash from the garden.”

“Who taught you how to do that?” Peeta asks in a surprised pitch.

“That old recipe book of yours,” I state. “We had so many squash; I wanted to do something special today.” I know he’ll like this. It’s what he would do. Make the moment special so that you’ll always remember it – I know how long he’s been waiting for this day.

When I set the pot of soup on the table, Peeta begins to ladle some out immediately, smirking as he does, but as he goes to grab my bowl, I put my hand up.

“I’m not having any right now; I’m fine with the bread.” I say.  His face falls slightly but he hides it well and is smirking again a second later. Taking a spoonful of soup, he blows on it a few times before eating. His eyes grow wide and he nods in approval.

“This is really good, Katniss,” he’s wearing a full smile now, but I notice his eyes focus on the bread in my hands a little too long. “I guess you didn’t go to the woods again today?” he asks.

“No, I had other things to do.” I’m hoping he’ll ask what things and give me an easy way to open this conversation, but he doesn’t. He just nods and looks down at his soup. “How was work?” I ask. It definitely isn’t the direction I wanted to take this conversation, but it gets him to look at me.

“Boring,” he shrugs. “But there is a fall festival going on in town this weekend if you wanted to go.” I can tell he is testing me with his question. Feeling out to see what my response would be.

“We’ll have to see how I feel.” I answer. I observe Peeta’s face again and see sadness in his eyes, but I wait for him to respond before I continue.

“Maybe if you ate more you’d have more energy to do things again,” He points out. He takes a deep breath before continuing. “You can’t let this effect you so much. If we’re meant to have a baby, it’ll happen.” He sounds as if it took every ounce of strength he has to be logical, but all I can focus on is his complete lack of suspicion and decide that this is the moment. Pounce on him like unexpected prey -- it’ll make everything worth it to see his reaction right now.

“You really have no idea, do you?” I’m grinning now, amused that this has gone completely over his head. Judging by the look on his face, he doesn’t see the humor.

“I guess I don’t.” he shrugs and leans across the table, grabbing a slice of bread from the basket and dipping it into his soup angrily before taking a large bite.

“I haven’t been eating because it’ll just come back up anyway, but I heard that bread helps with that.” I explain, showing him what’s left of the slice I’ve been nibbling on. He’s looking at me differently now, but I can tell he still isn’t completely understanding what I’m trying to tell him. As I reach into my pocket to grab the picture, he shoves the rest of his bread into his mouth and stares at me, waiting.

I set the picture down on the table and push it toward him slowly, watching as he picks it up and looks at it. I can tell he finally understands when he stops chewing; his right cheek puffs out full of bread, and his mouth hangs open slightly.

“That is why I can barely eat, sleep too much, and can’t find the energy to walk to the woods.” I wait a second before saying the words he has been waiting to hear for entirely too long. “I’m pregnant.” Peeta says nothing. I watch as he stares at the picture, eyes not moving. Finally, he resumes chewing his food and swallows the bread so he can speak.

“You should have told me.” He whispers, eyes still glued to the picture.

“I couldn’t,” I begin. “Not if I wasn’t sure. I wouldn’t do that to you again.” My voice unexpectedly catches in my throat and tears prick my eyes. I shake my head trying to stop it, but it’s no use. “Your face,” my voice falters. “I couldn’t see you look disappointed in me again.” I finish my sentences through tears, and when Peeta finally looks up from the picture, I see tears in his eyes too. He blows out a breath and bites his lip briefly before speaking.

“I could never be disappointed in you.” His voice shakes, but he continues. “How far along?”

“A little over seven weeks,” I tell him. My voice is shaking just as much as his, but there’s an air of happiness in our voices and it’s comforting. “And Dr. Huld said the baby is due June 21st.” The baby – there’s something about saying it to Peeta that makes me cry even harder; the sense of relief the tears brings is almost euphoric.

“How are you?” He asks.

“Terrible,” I sniff. “If you hadn’t noticed.” Peeta nods solemnly.

“I noticed.” The relief I felt is all too quickly replaced with guilt.

“I’m sorry,” I stammer. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I shake my head again, unsure of what words I can possibly say to communicate just how guilty I feel for putting him through that; maybe it would have been better to just tell him right away. “I should have told you sooner.”

“It’s okay,” Peeta assures me. “I know now, that’s all that matters.” No matter what he says, I can’t stop the tears that keep coming. He looks back down at the picture and tilts his head slightly, squinting while bringing the picture closer to his face. “Katniss?”

“Yeah?” I reach for a napkin to wipe my face when I think about how pathetic I must look right now.

“What am I looking at?” I start laughing at him before I even realize I’m doing it, and he looks up with a sheepish smile. “I’ve been trying to figure it out.” I wipe my nose and get up from my seat, moving over to stand behind him, leaning forward and placing my chin on his shoulder and try to remember exactly what the nurse told me this morning.

“The black area is the sac where the baby is. I can’t remember the word she used, I was too nervous.” I explain. Peeta nods, waiting for me to continue. “And this little gray part here…” I stop and point to the mark on the picture and lower my voice to a whisper “that’s the baby.” I don’t have to look at him to know that he is beaming.

“This little thing right here?” Peeta asks, putting his finger on top of mine. “It looks like a little bean.”

“A little bean that makes me sleep and vomit all day long.” I remind him before going back to the picture. “Right around here is where I saw the heartbeat.”

“You saw the heartbeat?” He tilts his head so that it’s resting on mine. “I wish I could have seen that.”

“I wanted you there more than anything, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. I was so scared I would go and find out something bad happened. I didn’t want to put you through that.” I could try and explain this to him over and over again with different words every time, but he’ll still never understand. He’ll still wish he could have been there to hold my hand and see the heartbeat with me. “I go back to the medical center on the 26th.”

“I’ll switch my shift at the bakery tomorrow.” Peeta says without hesitation. He turns in his chair which causes me to move my head off his shoulder and he grabs my hand pulling me to him, resting his hands on my hips and setting his head on my stomach. “I love you.” He says it so faintly that I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or the baby, but I decide to answer anyway.

“Us too.” I return, running my fingers through his hair and lean down placing a kiss on the top of his head.

“I’m really glad Haymitch isn’t coming for dinner tonight,” Peeta mumbles. “Because I don’t plan on letting go of you until morning.” When he wraps his arms around my back and looks up at me with that smile, I know he isn’t joking.

“Good,” I smile back. This is what I’ve been waiting for. His steadiness and warmth that lets me know everything will be alright. “I don’t want you to.”

***

I strip down and crawl into bed silently that night and watch Peeta do the same, stripping down to nothing but his navy undershorts; I can’t stop my eyes from surveying the way the elastic of the shorts cohere to his narrow hips, and the way the fabric hugs his thighs, meeting in the middle where my eyes remain fixated the longest.  Finally, tear my eyes away and move to his shoulders -- strong and broad, then down to his arms, watching the muscles move as he lowers himself down onto the mattress. There’s a noticeable sense of contentment in the room that hasn’t been there in months, and I sigh as Peeta moves over, closing the space between us.

He rests his head on his left arm and brings his right to my forehead, pushing my hair away and staring right at me so intently that it makes my stomach flip. I slip my right leg between his and throw my left over him, tangling us together.

“When should we tell people?” Peeta asks.

“Not yet.” I shake my head. “It’s too early.”

“I’ll need to take time off in June.” I admire him. He can think so far ahead without getting scared. Whenever I try to think too far into the future, I freeze up and can barely think straight. “They can get on without me for a few weeks, I think.”

“If you put Hakan in charge he’ll finally have to let you give him that raise.” I suggest.  Peeta smiles and kisses my forehead.

“What about Haymitch? Do you think he suspects anything?” He asks then.

“He’s Haymitch, of course he suspects something.” I reply.

“When should we tell him he’s going to be a grandpa?” Peeta laughs at his own joke and I groan, anticipating all of the crass things that Haymitch will think of to say before June. “He sees us more than most people.”

“We should try not to tell anyone until after I start to show. Haymitch included.” When I say this, Peeta’s hand moves down between us to my stomach and begins to rub gentle circles, it warms my skin instantly and I close my eyes.

“It’ll be our little secret for a while.” He whispers. “Get some sleep.” He kisses my closed eyes lightly and settles in to sleep himself.

The weeks leading up to the second appointment at the medical center go much smoother than they have been. On mornings I can’t drag myself out of bed, Peeta doesn’t try to rouse me. Instead, he quietly leaves the room and gets ready for work, coming back in to dress.

_He thinks I’m asleep, and he’s trying so hard to walk quietly through the bedroom, going from closet to dresser while setting his clothes down lightly at the end of the bed. He doesn’t realize that I’ve been watching him the entire time. Moving slowly, lifting his left leg higher than the right so it doesn’t drag on the hard wood floor of the bedroom._

_I smile to myself when the light blue towel wrapped around his waist starts to loosen and fall; when he stops to fix it he finally notices that I’m awake._

_“Did I wake you?” he asks, tightening the towel. I wish he wouldn’t._

_“No, I’ve been up. Just watching you.”_

_“You just got a free show.” He laughs, pointing to his towel._

_“I’m not complaining.” I wish I had the energy to make love the way we used to. Almost every morning, and more often than not, every evening. He hasn’t complained since he found out the reason for my disinterest, but I know it can’t be easy for him._

_He says nothing in reply to my comment, but pulls the towel away from his hips and lets it fall to the ground, keeping his eyes on me as he goes for his undershorts._

_“Wait,” I speak up. “Come here.” I may not have the drive to make love, but that doesn’t mean Peeta can’t enjoy himself. He’s been so patient, and even though this will probably make him late to open the bakery, he deserves it._

_He lays down on his back and I curl up next to his naked frame, resting my head on his chest as I move my hand down to grip him firmly; the noise that escapes his lips when I begin to run my hand up his length lets me know that he’s needed this._

On mornings I wake up sick, he is there keeping me calm. Kneeling beside me on the bathroom floor rubbing my back and sides as I retch into the bowl, wiping my mouth with a damp washcloth when the waves of nausea finally subside, and holding me as I walk back to bed, not leaving the room to make me toast until I’m settled back in bed.

Some mornings, I sleep through the alarm entirely. Waking up after Peeta has already left, and wanting to do nothing but thank him for not trying to wake me. One morning when I wake up after the alarm, Peeta is still home.

_I hear his footsteps coming up the stairs and then the bedroom door opens; I keep my eyes closed but keep listening as Peeta tries once again to keep his strides quiet. It hardly works, but the effort is appreciated. I hear him set down the plate of toast he makes me every morning on the bedside table before I feel his lips brush my cheek; a stray lock of hair dangles over and tickles my cheek – it’s still wet from his shower._

_“You shouldn’t walk to the bakery with your hair wet. You’ll catch a cold.” I mumble._

_“I’ll be okay.” Peeta answers into my ear. “I made you toast.” He doesn’t have to tell me, he does it every morning._

_“Thank you.” I smile. I turn onto my back to face him and wrap my arms around his neck. “What did you tell Ismene to convince her to switch shifts for the appointment with Dr. Huld tomorrow?”_

_“Nothing, really. I told her I had an appointment and she didn’t ask questions.” He explains. “As long as we don’t see someone we know while we’re there, we should be able to keep the secret a little while longer.” That makes me think of Sauda._

_“I saw a woman at my first appointment, she told me you gave her a free loaf of bread every day when you found out she was pregnant. She said her name was Sauda.” Peeta nods when he hears the name._

_“She hasn’t come in for a while; I guess her nausea went away.” He leans down and plants a soft kiss on my lips. “There’s hope for you yet.” I let go of his neck so he can get up, but he stays hunched over me, kissing me once more, deeper this time, before he finally leaves for the bakery._

On the morning of our appointment with Dr. Huld, Peeta wakes me with a kiss and gently coaxes me out of bed, apologizing for doing so but telling me that I need to get ready to go; the only thing that gets me to move is his promise to take his shower with me.

***

We wait in the exam room for Dr. Huld after the nurse leaves the room. It feels like she was in here for hours asking us questions, getting another urine sample and this time having to take two vials of blood as well. I lay on the exam table in a gown, fighting the nerves that are beginning to bubble up – Peeta stands next to me with his hand on my shoulder as he looks around the room at the posters on the walls. Dr. Huld is quicker this time, knocking lightly and smiling when she sees Peeta.

“It’s good to see you here this time, Peeta.” She says, shaking his hand.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He answers. Dr. Huld smiles wider at this and takes a seat on a small, rolling stool.

“We’ll start with a pelvic and breast exam. This is technically your first pre-natal appointment, so I’ll be going through the routine procedure. Just lay back and relax.” I do as I’m told and the room goes silent. Dr. Huld performs the exam and Peeta keeps a steady hand on my shoulder.

“How have you been feeling, Katniss?” Dr. Huld asks when she finishes the exam.

“About the same,” I begin. “Maybe slightly less nauseas.”

“Good. Over the next three weeks or so you should notice it lessening even more. You’ll start to feel more like yourself in the second trimester.” She explains. “Since we already have an extensive record of your medical history, Katniss, there is less for me to talk to you about today, but I would like to ask you both how you’ve been dealing with everything?”

“Fine.” Peeta says first. “I haven’t known as long as Katniss, though.”

“Good,” Dr. Huld nods. “How about you, Katniss? Are you doing better?” It took me a week, but I finally told Peeta how scared I get sometimes.

“Yes. Better.” Because now I have Peeta, and I’m not doing this alone anymore.

“You still speak with Dr. Aurelius once a week, correct?” we nod in response. “Have you told him the news yet?”

“Should we?” Peeta asks.

“I think it would be best that he knows.” Dr. Huld replies. Peeta and I agree to tell him the next time one of us talks to him. “Now, let’s get down to business. Katniss, the ultrasound that you had the last time you here was not routine. I don’t usually do ultrasounds until after 8 weeks, so you’ll have another one today as part of your routine visit, and you’ll have one more, further down the road.”

“What about before then?” I ask, concerned. “How will we know that the baby is alright?”

“We’ll listen to the heartbeat at the start of every appointment.” Dr. Huld smiles. She turns in her chair and rolls it to the counter behind her, opening a drawer and pulling out a small device that looks like a speaker attached to a small microphone by a wire. “This is a Doppler. I’ll use it to hear the heartbeat, and you’ll be able to hear it too.”

I look up at Peeta and he’s staring at the device in awe. We are no strangers to doctors and hospitals, but all of this is new to us. District 12 before the war did not have technology of any sort, let alone machines that will enable you to see your baby and listen to its heartbeat.

“I’ll conduct the ultrasound today since you have Peeta here with you.” Dr. Huld continues. “You can put your clothes back on while I get the machine, we’ll do this through the belly this time.” She smiles before leaving and Peeta lets out a puff of air.

“Wow,” he says, stretching. “This is intense.” He helps me get my clothes back on and I hop back onto the table, waiting to see the machine being rolled into the room again.

Dr. Huld enters and sets up the machine in silence, I glance at Peeta and see him looking at all of the parts anxiously; I have to smile at how excited he looks. Finally, Dr. Huld instructs me to lift my shirt up as she places a cloth over my lower half and squeezes a clear gel onto the smaller probe.

“This will be cold.” she warns as she presses the gel covered probe to my stomach. Peeta takes my hand but stays silent as Dr. Huld works.  “There we go.” She smiles.

I turn my head and look at the screen and see just how much things have changed in the last two and a half weeks. The baby not only looks bigger, but is moving around. I can feel Peeta’s grip on my hand tighten.

“There are arms and legs now.” Peeta whispers. I tear my eyes from the screen and look up at him; the smile on his face is so wide, so proud, that I’m not sure he will ever be able to get rid of it

“They’re small, but they are there.” Dr. Huld confirms.

“Look,” Peeta says pointing to the screen when he notices me looking at him. “It’s moving its arm around.” I didn’t think it was possible, but his smile seems to grow even bigger at this revelation.

“Talking like a proud dad already.” Dr. Huld laughs. Hearing Dr. Huld call Peeta dad does something to me. My nose starts to burn, the telltale sign that warns me I’m about to cry, but I don’t make an effort to stop it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Peeta look down at me when he hears my sniffling. He leans down and kisses my forehead, then moves to my ear.

“You’re happy, real or not real?” Hearing the question makes the tears come even quicker. It has been so long since we’ve played this game.

“Real.” I whisper in response, nodding. Peeta stands back up and looks at the screen again. Dr. Huld points out the heartbeat and Peeta watches it move, not taking his eyes off of it for a second.

“Are we going to get another picture?” He asks. He sounds so young, so innocent… so happy. Dr. Huld prints out another picture and hands it to Peeta; his grip on it is so tight I’m afraid he’ll rip it.

“So for the next appointment, I’ll just come here straight from the bakery.” Peeta says as we leave the medical center.

“Right,” I nod. “That way you can be there but not have to switch your shifts around again.”

“Can I keep this one?” Peeta asks, still holding the picture tightly in his right hand.

“It’s yours.” I laugh. He wraps his arm around me and pulls me into him as we walk home, shielding me from the late November cold that has infiltrated the district.

Peeta disappears into his painting room when we get home, and I don’t notice until later that day when we go upstairs to bed, but he’s made a thick paper frame for the picture we got today. It now resides on the bedside table on Peeta’s side – right next to the alarm clock.

Every night for a week, he lies on his side facing the photo and stares at it for several minutes before turning over and pulling me to him, and every night for a week we sleep so wrapped up in one another and the blankets that it takes a minute or more to untangle ourselves in the morning.

But when the nightmares start, I’m ready. I’ve been waiting for them to show up for weeks -- Scenes from our last visit to the medical center. First Peeta, gazing happily at the baby on the screen while I cry over his reaction, and then, everything turns dark.  The image on the screen stops moving, the small blip of the heartbeat ceases and that’s it. Our baby is gone.

I’ve been expecting this. These nightmares that will probably plague me until the day the baby is born, maybe even beyond. None of it is surprising. What is surprising is that during those cold nights after our appointment, I’m not the only one having nightmares about our baby.

 


	6. The Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Not much to say other than - Don't hate me.

_“Congratulations, you have a perfectly healthy baby.” Dr. Huld announces._

_“Is it a boy or a girl?” I ask, looking around the room. “Where’s the baby?”_

_“With Katniss, of course.” Dr. Huld points and I follow her finger across the room, letting my eyes land on Katniss, dressed in white. Everything around her is white. The stack of pillows she is leaning against, the hospital bed, and even the blanket that is wrapped around the small bundle she is cradling. It’s all so shiny. Too shiny._

_I smile as I walk toward her, but she’s so focused on the baby that she doesn’t even notice that I’m walking her way._

_“Is it a boy or a girl?” I ask gently – she looks up at the sound of my voice. The happiness in her eyes is evident, but when she focuses on me, they change. The softness disappears and they turn hateful and cold. A scowl spreads across her face before she begins to laugh. There is no happiness or joy in her sound. It’s stony and evil, and it sends a chill up my spine._

_“This?” she asks, holding the baby up in the air with one hand. She brings her other hand up and dangles it over the baby’s chest, and that’s when I notice the claws – Long, sharp, and filthy. “You didn’t think you actually deserved this, did you?” she laughs again and she brings her claws down hard; dark red blood saturates the baby’s white blanket in seconds._

_“Stop!” I scream, lunging for the baby, but Katniss is too quick, pulling her claws out and swiping at me, tearing open my t-shirt and the flesh underneath. She digs her claws back into the baby, laughing the entire time._

_“You think a new family will make up for the way you failed to save us?” The voice I hear now is one I haven’t heard in over 15 years. It’s dripping with venom the same way it always did. I spin around, looking for the source._

_“Mom?” I see her standing in front of me now, the expression on her face when she looks at me is just as I remembered. Disdainful and disgusted._

_“You don’t deserve a new family. Not after what you let happen to us.” I’m frozen, listening as the voice continues. “Maybe this Seam brat is smarter than she looks. She knows you’re a useless waste of space.” When I turn around, Katniss is laughing again._

_“You’re worthless.” Katniss says. Blood is dripping from the tips of her fingers, and just as she opens her mouth to speak again, my eyes fly open._

It takes me a minute to realize that I am at home in bed with Katniss. I get out of bed slowly; if I don’t move too quickly she won’t suspect anything is wrong. Carefully, I shut and lock the bathroom door and stand in front of the mirror. The reflection staring back at me is broken. My hair stands up in different directions, the bags under my eyes are severe and dark, my eyes are empty, almost lifeless, and I can’t stop shaking.

I can’t get the images of Katniss killing our child out of my head. The way she called me worthless, and chastised me for believing I deserved a child replays over and over again, and every time I try to fight it, her voice just gets louder and louder, demanding my attention. Instead of going back to bed, I walk down to the kitchen to make myself some tea in hopes that it will calm me down. I don’t feel like myself, though it’s not an unfamiliar feeling. I’m teetering on the edge of lucidity and lunacy, and if I don’t calm myself soon, there’s no going back.

The clock on the wall in the kitchen reads 3:30am; before long the alarm clock will be ringing, and when I’m not in there to turn it off, Katniss will wake up and notice I’m gone. I need to calm myself down and get back in bed before then.

While I wait for the water in the kettle to boil, I sit at the kitchen table with my arms outstretched across the width of the table, palms flat, and my head down. I try to concentrate on keeping my breathing even and body calm, but I’m still shaking so badly that my hands are jumping on the table top. I curl my hands into fists to try to stop them, but it’s not use.

 _“You’re worthless.”_ Katniss’ voice echoes through my head again as the tea kettle begins to whistle behind me, causing me to spring up from my seat and pace the length of the kitchen quickly, grabbing a mug as I pass the cupboards. With hopes that the warm liquid will ease the agitation, I hold the mug in my hand and try to grab the kettle from the stove, but I am still shaking and the mug slips from my grasp and crashes on the floor. Placing the kettle back on the still lit burner, I drop to the floor, ignoring the high pitched whistling that begins to emit from the kettle once again.

“Peeta, what are you doing?” I look up and see Katniss standing at the end of the steps, sleep heavy in her eyes, arms crossed tightly around herself to try to warm herself up. I lose my focus and set my hand down on the floor with force; it’s too late to stop the sharp shard of broken mug from tearing open my palm.

I cry out in pain and Katniss is kneeling next to me instantly, grabbing my hands and coaxing me to get up from the floor. The kettle continues to whistle as Katniss steps over the broken mug and pulls me with her, just as she gets me to sit down at the table; I hear the alarm clock upstairs faintly begin to sound.

“This is bleeding a lot,” Katniss says holding my hand in both of hers. “You need stitches.” I let my eyes fall to her two hands gripping my wounded one and all I see is blood. Dark red blood everywhere. Pooling in my palm, running down my forearm, dripping from the tips of Katniss’ fingers as she tries to apply pressure.

“Stop!” I push her hands away, sending droplets of my blood through the air, dotting her shirt with red and smearing a line down her arm. “Where’s the baby?”

“What are you talking about, Peeta?” Katniss asks, stepping toward me.

“Where’s the baby?!” I scream. “What did you do?!” The whistling of the tea kettle seems to grow even louder, but I don’t hear the alarm anymore, it must have turned off. All I hear is crying. A baby crying. “You hurt it, didn’t you? That’s who is crying upstairs.”

“Nobody’s crying, Peeta.” Katniss says. Her voice sounds calm, but I know better. She turns around quickly and grabs the handle of the kettle, ripping it from the lit burner and setting it down on another; the whistling stops immediately, but not the crying. “It’s the alarm clock.”

“Stop lying and tell me what you did!” I yell. Katniss steps toward me, putting her arms out in front of her, trying to grab for me, but I back up. “Don’t touch me.” I threaten. I have to leave. I can’t be here right now. I turn around and run to the door, bolting out and into the early morning air, not bothering to grab my coat or put on shoes. I begin running as fast as my left leg will allow when I hear Katniss calling after me.

I pull at the bakery door with one hand, my breathing coming out in gasps with each pull, clouds of condensation coming from my mouth from the cold. By the time I calm down and realize that the door is locked and I left the key at home, blood from my hand has dripped from my fingers and dotted the threshold of the bakery, and my right foot is in pain from the cold ground. Sitting on the ground, I pull my knees to my chest and breath.

I go through every exercise that Dr. Aurelius and the team of Capitol doctors taught me to get through a flashback, but nothing is helping. Freezing, manic, and bleeding, I stand up and walk away from the bakery, not sure of where I am walking but knowing that if I don’t move, I’ll be in even worse shape. That’s when I see her. Katniss, running as fast as she can with a bag slung over her shoulder. She notices me right away and puts her hand up. It’s too early in the morning to yell across the road, but I know she’s asking me to stay put.

She is bundled in her coat, and she is wearing a pair of pants now; when she finally reaches me, she grabs my arm. Before I can stop myself, I freeze at her touch. I can see the sadness reflecting in her eyes, but she says nothing about it.

“Hey,” her voice is gentle and calm, and she doesn’t remove her hand from my arm. “You’re freezing cold. Let’s go inside and fix you up.”

“No key.” I say, shaking my head.

“I brought it.” She reaches into the pocket of her pants and pulls the key ring out, dangling it in front of my face. “I noticed them still hanging on the hook by the door as I was leaving, so I grabbed them.” She sighs and moves her hand down my arm and slowly takes my hand. “I brought you clean clothes, your shoes, your coat, and things for your hand too.” She pulls me softly in the direction of the bakery, and I comply, falling in step with her. She unlocks the door easily and we go inside and turn on the lights.

“Go in the office, I’ll be in there in a second.” Katniss says; I’m too cold and drained to argue so I do as I’m told, dropping down onto the couch and resting my injured hand on my leg. Katniss enters the office a few minutes later with a bowl of water and a wash cloth, and without words she pushes my chest back onto the couch and sets the bowl in my lap, grabbing my hand and hovering it over the bowl as she takes the wash cloths and squeezes it over my hand, letting the warm water begin to wash away the blood. “You definitely need stitches, it’s still bleeding badly.” When the blood is cleared from my hand, she reaches over into the bag and pulls out a bottle and a large roll of gauze bandages.

“I’m going to get fresh water, take this bottle and pour some on the cut. It’s going to sting…” she doesn’t say it out loud but I know why she won’t do anything that will cause me too much pain. She doesn’t want me to get crazy again. She doesn’t want me to associate the pain from the medicine with her being the cause of it. I nod my head robotically and she takes the bowl from my lap and leaves the office again.

She’s right, it does sting; that stinging turns into a burning sensation. I want to clench my fist so badly, but I know that will only make things worse. I want to yell out in rage over how stupid I could have possibly been to set my hand down on a jagged piece of broken ceramic in the first place, but I can hear Dr. Aurelius’ words already _“It’s not your fault Peeta. You’re not yourself when you have an episode.”_   I still don’t feel like myself, but at least I’ve stopped shaking.

Katniss returns with a fresh bowl of water and wash cloth, as well as a towel. She goes straight back to work, using the wet wash cloth once more to rinse away any new blood, and then she pats the area around the wound dry before rolling the bandage around my hand thick, tucking the end of the roll into itself.

“Let’s get you changed.” She says, helping me out of my shirt and shorts.

“I can’t believe I ran out of the house in my underwear.” I say, embarrassed.

“I doubt anyone noticed. It’s still too early for people who aren’t bakers to be awake.” She dips the wash cloth in the water again and wipes the dried blood from my arms, fingers, legs, and neck. I have no idea how it got on my neck.

By the time she finishes washing me off, the bowl of water is stained red, and the wash cloth is beyond cleaning. She helps me into a fresh pair of shorts, pants, and shirt, even going as far as putting my socks and shoes on for me because I can’t do it with one good hand.

“You should rest.” She says. “Just for a little bit. Then we can go to the medical center.” I know she’s right and I don’t protest. I lie down on the couch and curl up on my side, letting my wrapped hand hang off the edge. Katniss sits herself down on the floor and scoots herself up in line with my head and reaches out, running her fingers through the front of my hair and looking into my eyes, searching. “What happened, Peeta?”

“Nightmare.” I reply flatly. “About you… hurting the baby.” The look of horror on her face should feel like a stab to the heart, but it doesn’t. I don’t feel anything, and I know by now that is not a good sign. I know this isn’t over and I am almost out of fight.

“Go to sleep.” Katniss whispers, clearly not wanting to talk about my nightmare anymore.

“No,” I refuse. I’m too afraid to go back to sleep, but the more she runs her fingers through my hair, the harder it gets to stop from drifting off.

“It’ll be alright. You have to sleep, Peeta.” I’m shaking my head again with even more force than before.

“It’s going to happen again.” I warn her. “I can feel it.”

“I’ll be right here.” Katniss soothes.

“You shouldn’t be.” I say sadly. “You’re the problem.” She looks away from me then, and focuses her eyes on the wall in front of her.

“Do you really think I’d hurt our baby?” Katniss asks.

“I don’t know what I think right now.” I reply. I can’t make sense of anything. One minute I know better than to ever think she would do something to harm our child, and the next I am not so sure. “This is a bad one.” I add, hoping that if I make it clear that I’m not in total control, she’ll understand.

“Should we call Dr. Aurelius?”

“Not yet, I’m too tired to try to explain myself to him.” I say. “Later. After the stitches.” Katniss nods and resumes running her fingers through my hair and I can’t fight sleep anymore; I drift off within minutes.

The nightmare comes in bright, shiny flashes this time. Claws dripping blood, Katniss’ voice yelling _“You’re worthless”_ Over and over again as I try to reach for the lifeless, mangled baby that lay in her lap. I’m slipping further and further away from sanity, but something tells me _“Get her away. Get her away from you before you hurt her.”_

I open my eyes wide, forcing the images away, and all at once, the flashback hits. I look on the floor next to where Katniss sits, staring up at me from where I stand above her and I see a bowl of bloody water and a wash cloth stained red. She’s trying to clean up what she did.

“Leave!” I can’t put into words why she has to go, and she doesn’t seem to understand. She stands up and moves toward me, but I sidestep her embrace and move into the kitchen. She follows, staring right at me. “You hurt the baby!” I yell.

“Peeta,” her voice is calm and even. “Not real.”

“I saw the blood! You tried to clean it up and hide it!” I distance myself from her with the steel table in the middle of the kitchen, and Katniss stops on the other side.

“That was _your_ blood, Peeta. Look at your hand.” I look down and see the bandage around my hand, blood beginning to soak through.

“I bet you did this too, didn’t you?!” Katniss closes her eyes and signs heavily before rounding the side of the table and walking toward me.

“I shouldn’t have let you fall asleep until we called Dr. Aurelius.” She extends her arms in my direction and tries to grab me, but I dart away.

“You need to leave, Katniss!” For a brief moment, I can think clearly. “Leave before I hurt you!”

“You’re not going to hurt me, Peeta.” Katniss says. She sounds contemptuous, like she believes I don’t have it in me to try and hurt her. But doesn’t she remember what I did to her before? She can’t possibly believe I’m not capable of doing it again.

The bell behind me rings and I whip around to see Hakan standing in the doorway, surveying the scene. Without a word he breezes past me and stops halfway to Katniss. I see him turn his head to her and she nods, closing her eyes as she does.

“Peeta, what’s going on?” Hakan asks, turning his gaze back to me. I look over his shoulder at Katniss and see tears building behind her eyes. What _is_ going on? I try to make sense of the muddy thoughts and images that are swirling around in my head, but all I can do is sob. Why is this happening? We’re supposed to be happy.

“Can you please tell Katniss that she needs to leave? I don’t trust myself right now.” I can’t even look at her anymore. I keep my eyes fixed on a tile on the floor as the sobs continue.

“I’m not leaving, Peeta.” I hear Katniss reply.

“Please,” I whimper. “Please just go.” I’m pleading with her. It’s for her own good, can’t she see that?

“Maybe you should go, Katniss.” Hakan says. “I’ll take care of him for you.” I hear her sign in resignation and I look up as she begins to step forward.

“Don’t walk past me, go out the back.” I tell her. She turns around quickly and retreats, shaking her head.

“He needs stitches in his hand.” She says before she disappears. When we hear the door slam, Hakan walks toward me.

“Tell me what happened, Peeta.” He asks. I shake my head.

“I can’t. We’re not telling anyone yet.” I reply.

“I think it’s a little late to worry about that. It’ll just be between us, so I can help you.” I consider his argument for a minute and decide to tell him.

“Katniss is pregnant…” I shake my head. “Or was pregnant.”

“Did she lose the baby?” Hakan asks solemnly.

“No.” I answer. “She killed it.” Hakan’s face drops and he furrows his eyebrows.

“Not real, Peeta. You know she would never do that.” Hakan knows the game by now.

“That’s what I thought, but now I don’t know.” I reply.

“How long has it been since it’s been this bad?” Hakan asks. He knows all about my Hijacking, and he has seen flashbacks before, but judging by his question, he’s never seen it this bad.

“It hasn’t been like this since I came back here from The Capitol. I’m usually able to fight them and get through them in a few minutes, but nothing I’ve tried has worked.”

“Well you sound better than you did a few minutes ago, so something is helping.” Hakan encourages.

“It’s because Katniss is gone.” Hakan doesn’t have a wise answer to that one, so he looks down at my hand.

“We need to get that hand taken care of when the medical center opens.” Hakan begins. “We’re staying closed today. I’ll lock up and call the crew and let them know not to come in.”

“Hakan?” I say. “Can you do be one more favor?”

“Of course, Peeta. What do you need?” he asks.

“I need you to call Katniss for me and tell her I’m not coming home.”


	7. 45 days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is the longest chapter of the story so far. We are back to Katniss' POV and it's time to bring Peeta home.

As soon as the bakery door slams behind me, I take off running. I’m not even thinking. I let my legs take me back to the Victor’s Village by memory as quickly as they can. Halfway through my journey, the pain in my chest is palpable, and the tears are flowing so quickly that I can barely see. The cold wind rushes in my direction, making the tears feel as though they’re freezing to my face, but I ignore all of it. None of it matters right now.

The sun is just beginning to rise when I reach Haymitch’s door and begin to pound on it with both fists until it feels like all of the bones in my hands are broken. I hear him coming, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. The door swings open abruptly, leaving me standing there with my fists in the air, a lump in my throat, and a pain in my chest. He’s angry. Every little crease around his eyes stands out; the lines between them are deep from furrowing his brow so tightly.

I can’t hold myself up anymore and I hunch over, planting my hands on my knees while I try to catch my breath and compose myself.

“Katniss, what’s wrong?” I can’t see his face right now, but his tone and use of my name tell me that the anger is gone. He sounds fearful now. I try to find the strength to choke out the words, but every time I try all that comes out is another round of stifled sobs and gasps. “Katniss!” Forcing myself, I spit out the only word I can manage.

“Peeta…” The sobs consume as soon as his name is out of my mouth, and then Haymitch is grabbing my arm. Lifting me up to a standing position and placing his hands on my shoulders to keep me steady.

“What about Peeta?” He asks. When I don’t answer him, he grabs my arm. “Get in here,” he huffs, dragging me into his house. He guides me to the kitchen table, still holding on to my arm as he pulls the chair back. The sound of the legs scraping across the wood floor brings me back to reality. “Sit.” He points to the chair.

I drop into the chair and stare in front of me. The table is full of empty liquor bottles, and the smell is doing nothing to make me feel any better. Suddenly, I’m overcome with anger and I sweep my arms across the table and push the bottles off the edge, not feeling satisfied until the sound of the very last bottle breaking rings through the air.

Haymitch says nothing. In fact, he ignores the pile of broken bottles on his kitchen floor, choosing instead to walk around the table in the other direction, sitting down at the chair on the other end.

“What’s wrong with Peeta?” he asks again. Why is going to make me say it?

“Flashback.” I offer nothing more.

“Where is he?” he presses. He can tell it is bad, I know he can. His face is almost as gray as his eyes when he starts to put things together. “Did he try to hurt you?” I shake my head.

“He’s at the bakery.” I answer, feeling vomit start to creep up my throat from the smell of Haymitch’s house. “Can you please get rid of that smell?!” I shout.

“What do you want me to do?!” He shouts back.

“Clean your house before I vomit on your floor!” Not that it would matter if I did. The place is filthy. I can’t concentrate on anything but the stench of the house. I take deep breaths through my mouth to try and ward off the sickness, but it’s not working. I catch Haymitch staring at me with a bewildered look on his face, like he can’t possibly understand what is wrong with me.

“Are you going to talk or am I going to the bakery to see Peeta for myself?” he asks.

“I can’t talk while I’m trying not to vomit.” I reply.

“Then let’s go to your house.” As soon as he says it I’m flying out of the chair, jumping over the broken bottles, and running out the front door, not stopping until I reach the porch. I breathe in the fresh air, letting it fill my nose and lungs, settling my stomach enough so that I can think straight.

Haymitch follows me silently through my front door – it’s not until we’re in the house that I remember the disaster that things were left in.

“Katniss…” Haymitch says, stunned. “What the hell happened?” I turn around quickly and see him staring at the floor; his eyes follow the drops of blood that Peeta left behind when he ran out of the house. Some of them are smeared across the tiles of the entryway and I realize only then that it must have been from me carelessly walking through it when I left to follow him. There was no time to clean any of it.

Haymitch moves forward, following the trail into the kitchen, stopping at the chair Peeta was sitting in. The puddle of blood is larger there, and Haymitch looks at it, and then at the smashed mug before looking back at me, waiting for an answer.

“He lost it.” I start, walking into the kitchen. We take the seats at either end of the table, not disturbing the bloody mess that litters the floor on the other side. “I came down here this morning and he was kneeling on the floor in front of the broken mug, and I think I scared him. When I asked him what he was doing he got so nervous that he seemed to forget what he was doing, and he set his hand right down on a broken piece of mug. The cut was so bad.”

“How do you know it was a flashback?” Haymitch asks then.

“I know what they look like by now.” I bark. It’s his eyes. If he hides everything else, the one thing he can’t hide from me are his eyes. The way they cloud over when he has a flashback and seem to lose all color and warmth. It’s a look I will never forget. That’s what his eyes looked like today. In the kitchen, and at the bakery. They never once went back to normal.

“Do you know what triggered it?” That’s a much more reasonable question, but it’s one that I can’t possibly figure out how to answer. I nod, and Haymitch waits a minute before asking the obvious question. “What was it?”

We agreed not to tell anyone yet. It was supposed to be our little secret for a little while longer, but Peeta’s in trouble. If I want to help him, I need to tell Haymitch.

“He thought I was hurting the baby.” The lump in my throat grows quickly after saying it out loud. Having to admit that Peeta, who was once so happy about this, is now so completely disoriented that he can’t even understand that I would never hurt our child. That even now, after 15 years, the old Capitol is still finding ways to ruin things for us.

“…what baby?” Haymitch asks. He looks perplexed, and I can almost see him trying to understand what baby I am talking about. His face goes slack suddenly, and his eyes widen when he finally realizes what I’m saying. “You’re pregnant.” It’s not a question.

“Yes…” I nod, before cracking. Tears spill over and my bottom lip trembles. Haymitch doesn’t speak. He stares at me, caught in a rare moment where he is at a loss for words. He snaps out of it quickly, setting his folded hands down on the table in front of him. If I had it in me, I would laugh right now.

“Was this planned?” He questions, voice unsteady.

“Yes.” I reply, looking down at my fingers. The nails are stained red with Peeta’s blood from cleaning him up at the bakery. I move from my seat and to a kitchen drawer, pulling out a pair of scissor and moving to the sink, carefully cutting my nails as far down as I can. Haymitch doesn’t move from his seat until I’ve finished and started washing my hands – scrubbing so hard with water that is so scalding hot that it feels like my skin is going to melt off.

“Katniss,” Haymitch speaks up. Before I know it he’s standing next to me, pulling my hands from the water and covering them with a dish towel. “We’ll figure this out.” Once again he’s guiding me to a chair to sit down, pulling the one he was previously sitting in over to me and sitting down, resting his elbows on his knees. “How far…” The words seem to die on his lips.

“11 weeks,” I reply, knowing the question before he could ever get the chance to finish it.

“Is that what that whole threatening to vomit on my floor thing was back there?” I nod and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat. This is where he would crack a joke, but neither of us sees the use right now.

“I’ve been so sick, Haymitch.” I can’t get a handle on my emotions and every time I try to speak, more tears find their way out. “But it was all getting so much better after I told him.” I look at my hands, now dry but red. The tips are uncomfortable from how far down I cut the nails. “Now this…”

“Does Dr. Aurelius know?” When I shake my head, Haymitch pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Why not?”

“We were planning to tell him….” I think about the conversation with Dr. Huld, and how she strongly suggested that we tell him right away. We were going to give it another week, and then tell him together. Guilt washes over me and all I feel is cold when I realize that if we had just called him sooner, we may have been able to avoid this, and now it’s too late. “This is our fault.” I whisper.

“We need to call him,” Haymitch says firmly. “Today,” His leg is bouncing nervously on the floor – I’ve never seen him like this. “As soon as possible.”

We both jump when the phone rings – I sprint to it, hoping that it’s Peeta on the other end, but when I pick up and hear Hakan, my heart sinks.

“Hey, Katniss…” he says. His voice is sad. The way someone’s voice sounds when they are about to give you bad news.

“Is he alright?” I ask quickly, knowing the answer already but trying desperately to prolong the inevitable.

“Not really.” Hakan answers. “I’m going to take him to get stitches soon, but he wanted me to call you,” He pauses. “He’s not coming home, Katniss.” I already knew that, but that doesn’t make hearing it hurt any less. “I’m trying to convince him to stay at my house, but he just wants to stay at the bakery.”

“I’m going to call the doctor in a minute.” I say vacantly. “Peeta needs to talk to him too. Can you make sure that he does?”

“I will. Give him my phone number too, just in case.” He hesitates before speaking the next part. “He’s going to need clothes.”

“I’ll put a bag together.” I answer quickly, not letting the implication of what it means linger for too long.

“I’ll pick it up later. Katniss?” He sighs heavily. “I’m sorry.” As soon as I hang up the phone, Haymitch is speaking behind me.

“He’s not coming home, is he?” I shake my head, but don’t turn around.

“I’ll make the bag, you call the doctor.” He says rigidly.

“His is the dresser on the right side of the room.” I call out as Haymitch descends the stairs.

I stare at the phone knowing that I have to pick it up and dial the number. I have to explain everything to Dr. Aurelius and beg him to help Peeta when we should have been honest and upfront with him all along. Will he even want to help after we’ve hid this from him?

He sounds groggy when he answers the phone, and for a brief moment I want to hang up. I shouldn’t have called this early, but it’s an emergency. Surely he’ll understand.

“Dr. Aurelius?” I ask nervously. “It’s Katniss.”

“Katniss,” he answers, clearing his throat. “Is everything alright?”

“Not really,” I admit. Where do I even begin? “Peeta really needs help.”

“Start at the beginning.” Dr. Aurelius requests.

“The beginning…” I repeat. What is the beginning? “Well, Peeta and I are expecting a baby and this morning he had a really bad flashback, he said I hurt the baby.” I say it all at once so I don’t have time to take anything back. If he wants to take it further, I’ll worry about it then. His silence on the other end makes me wonder what I said that was wrong.

“When did this happen?” he asks flatly.

“I just said it happened this morning.” I answer. Is he falling asleep while talking to me?

“No, I mean … how far along are you?” he asks.

“I’m 11 weeks,” I start.

 “Did you plan it?” Why is everyone asking me that?

“Yes we planned it.” I snap. “We have been planning it for a year now.”

“Katniss,” he takes a deep breath before continuing. “I understand that the decision to start a family is a private and intimate one, but considering your history and Peeta’s history, you really should have told me.”

“We didn’t know,” I say choking up. “We messed up.” I wasn’t sure I had tears left, but my body proves me wrong and breaks down into heaving sobs once again.

“Katniss, Katniss… it’s alright. Let’s just talk this out, okay?” Dr. Aurelius says soothingly. “Let me explain to you why you should have told me about this before you even conceived, ok?” I agree and he begins talking in a soft and slow voice. “When Peeta was here in the Capitol getting treatment for his Hijacking, we taught him how to deal with flashbacks based on what we knew he would be dealing with when going home. We knew he would be close to you, and we taught him how to deal with flashbacks that involved you, him, and your history together.” He’s quiet for a moment, letting what he said sink in. “But Katniss, the problem is that he never learned how to deal with any new, life altering changes involving you that might arise -- namely, you being pregnant with his child.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, unsure if I’m following properly. “We’ve had life altering changes since he came back and he was fine.”

“This is different. You’re bringing another person into your family. It will never be just you and him again. I’ve been afraid this would happen for a long time, but he always told me that you were dead set on not having children. There are areas of his brain that haven’t been subjected to treatment and that area is one of them. The extent of his treatment in regards to you having his child is the time he told Panem you were pregnant. That’s it. And since that wasn’t a real pregnancy, it’s not going to cut it.”

“So he sees me as a threat when I’m pregnant…” I conclude.

“Only because he hasn’t been given reason to think otherwise,” Dr. Aurelius reminds me. “This is why I have been asking him, begging him to come back to the Capitol for testing every year. I want to be able to evaluate him in person, talk to him about what his life is like and decide if he needs any additional treatment to make it easier for him to adjust to changes.” He stops again, much longer this time before finishing his sentence. “He is mentally ill in ways that you will never understand.”

“I understand.” I argue, feeling my blood begin to boil.

“You understand what you’ve seen, but you’ll never know what it is like for him. _I’ll_ never know what it’s like, but that’s why I’m here to help him and figure out how to make this manageable for him. This is why it is so important we learn everything we can about treating him. He’s all we’ve got and he deserves to learn how to fight it.” He sighs. “I know you’ll never believe that I want him to come here for his own good, but it is, Katniss. Unfortunately, the only way to help him is to induce flashbacks and make things difficult for him, so we can teach him how to fight it. We could have had him come here for a short stay, and we could have worked with him and gotten him used to the idea of you being pregnant, that way he would never see you as a threat to his child.” I hate that he has to learn I’m not a threat rather than already knowing.

“Why didn’t you do this when he did come out there?” I ask.

“Because back then you still didn’t want children; he said it was pretty definite, so I didn’t put him through anything unnecessary. You were angry enough at me for putting him through the tests that we did, if you recall.” After Peeta went back to the Capitol 5 years ago to meet with Dr. Aurelius and have himself evaluated, the testing they put him through had such a negative impact on him that I called Dr. Aurelius in a rage for doing it to him. “But remember what I tell you both every single week? If anything changes, let me know and we’ll work through it. This is one of those times.”

“How do we fix this?” I whisper, my bottom lip beginning to tremble again from trying to hold back another round of sobs.

“Without him being here, it may take some time. It’s too late to get him here now, not in the state he is in.” Dr. Aurelius says honestly. “And Katniss, you have to give him that time. You can’t get mad at him for this, he can’t control it.”

“He’s planning to live at the bakery for who knows how long.” I inform him.

“And you have to let him. Dragging him home isn’t going to make things any better. That will come later.” He explains.

“What do you mean?”

“He needs to see it’s real.” He begins. “The biggest thing that helped him in those early days was watching the real footage of the memories that were tampered with.”

“We have ultrasound pictures. He’d probably like to have one.” I offer.

“I’m sure he would, but I’m afraid that won’t be enough.”

“What else can I do then?” He’s quiet while he thinks.

“Wait. Go and see him from time to time, but only if he allows you to stay. Don’t force yourself on him; it will only scare him more. As long as he allows you around, talk to him calmly about the baby. Tell him how you’re feeling, tell him how far along you are every single time you see him, so that he can start getting the idea in his head that the baby is still there and alright and you haven’t and have no plans to ever hurt it.” He explains. “Unfortunately, based on Peeta’s initial recovery, he probably won’t start to respond enough to come home until you start showing. Because then he can see for himself that the baby is there every time he looks at you.”

“I don’t know when…” I begin, but I’m cut off.

“Every woman shows at different times, so I can’t give you a time frame. Keep me informed of everything that is going on so I can judge when you should try to convince him to come home. If you do it too early, it’ll only prolong things.”

“I can’t do this alone.” I admit.

“You won’t be. We’ll get him back to you, I promise. You just have to realize that it isn’t going to happen overnight.” He tells me. “I’m going to send you a few books to read so you don’t think too much, alright? Read them, and when you see Peeta, tell him everything you’ve learned in your reading.”

“Alright,” I agree. “You’re going to talk to him, right?”

“Of course I am. I will call him this afternoon at the bakery and talk to him. I want to give him time to settle down a little. He may not get on the phone if I call too early.” For the first time, I appreciate what Dr. Aurelius does. He knows Peeta’s episodes better than I even do.

“I can’t help but feel like this is my fault.” I stammer.

“How can this be your fault, Katniss?” He asks.

“Because I didn’t want children,” I explain. “I told him no so many times he didn’t think it was ever going to be a possibility, and because of that he didn’t get the treatment he needed.”

“If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine for not doing it when he was here 5 years ago, no matter how mad it would have made you.” Before we hang up, I make sure Dr. Aurelius also has Hakan’s number.

I hang up the phone and turn around -- there’s a bag on the table and Haymitch on the floor, wiping up the blood; the broken mug has already been picked up.

“You don’t have to do that Haymitch; I can take care of it.” I tell him, trying to get him to stop.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asks, ignoring me. “I’ve heard about what stress can do to a pregnant woman.” There’s a sense of concern in his voice that I’ve never heard before. It doesn’t take me long to understand what it is. I remember what Peeta said the other night about Haymitch becoming a grandfather. He meant it partly as a joke, but there is some truth to it. I never stopped to consider how this would affect Haymitch. All I thought about was the jokes he would crack when he found out.

“I’m alright,” I assure him. “Nothing worse than what I’ve already been dealing with.” He nods as he continues the scrub the floor and I dart up the steps, grabbing the framed ultrasound picture that Peeta kept on his table and bring it down to the kitchen.

Instead of putting it in the bag with the rest of Peeta’s things, I wait, watching Haymitch, who has now moved to the entryway, as he scrubs the spots of blood that dot the floor. When he finishes and walks back to the kitchen I hold the picture out to him.

“We got this last week.” He takes the picture from my hand and looks at it, screwing his eyes up to try and see the picture clearly. Then, I see something that I almost never see from Haymitch – a genuine smile.

“Wow…” he mumbles, handing the pictures back to me. He watches as I open up the bag and stuff the picture inside.

“He had it on his bedside table; I thought he’d like to have it with him.” I shrug.

The next three weeks pass by like I’m living in a dream. Every morning I go to sleep without Peeta lying next to me, and every night when the nightmares hit I scream alone and wait for it to pass naturally. Every morning I wake up and have to realize all over again that he’s not here where he should be. It’s easier in the morning to just pretend he’s let me sleep in and gone to work, but by afternoon when the usual time he comes home passes, the pit in my stomach grows.

A week after I talked to Dr. Aurelius his books arrived. Three about pregnancy and one book full of names. We never even got to discuss names. We never even got to discuss if we thought we were going to have a boy or a girl. We haven’t discussed anything, really.

I read the books like Dr. Aurelius told me, my favorite highlights each week of pregnancy, giving details on how I should be feeling and how the baby is progressing. Every morning I call the bakery and talk to Hakan to check on Peeta. He’s stopped answering the phones entirely now, and only comes out to work at short intervals.

Hakan convinced him to stay at his house after a week at the bakery, but Peeta woke up screaming from nightmares of me mauling our child so often that he refused to stay any longer and become a burden to Hakan and his wife Wren.

I see him twice the second week. He allows me to stay at the bakery for 15 minutes each time, and I tell him everything I can remember from the books I’ve been reading.

_“I’m in my second trimester now.” I tell him gently. Hakan stands at the counter keeping watch, just in case something goes wrong. I hate that it has to be this way, but Dr. Aurelius is sure that this will contribute to helping him. “The baby is the size of a peach now.” I’ve talked this though with Hakan, and when I look over to him, he quickly disappears into the kitchen and returns with a peach in his hand, walking to where we sit at a table and sets the peach down between us. “See how big?”_

_“That’s not so big.” Peeta says, eyeing the peach._

_“Bigger than it was last week.” I inform him. “Last week it was only as big as a large plum.” Peeta scoffs and I catch his eye quickly. They still aren’t right, and the purple bags under his eyes tell me that he’s hardly sleeping, if at all. “But you’re right,” I continue. “It’s not so big yet, that’s why you can’t tell I’m pregnant yet.”_

_The last time I talked to Dr. Aurelius he told me that it was important that I remind Peeta that the baby is growing fast but is still too small for people to be able to tell it’s there._

_“Real or not real?” he asks, looking to Hakan._

_“Real. Katniss is right,” Hakan chimes in. “The baby is there, you just can’t tell yet because it’s very small.” It’s like talking to a child. Slow words in a pleasant tone so he doesn’t pick up any negativity. It’s torture. I want to scream at him. I want to take him by the shoulders and shake him and tell him to wake up and realize what he’s doing, but I can’t. I know this isn’t him and I know he can’t help it so I follow the rules that Dr. Aurelius gives me every week._

Haymitch is over every morning to check on me. If I’m not out of bed by the time he gets here, he will scream up the steps for me to get out of bed and come have breakfast. In all of the time I’ve known Haymitch not once have I ever seen him cook a full meal, so when I walk down the steps every morning to see him standing over the stove scrambling eggs and frying bacon, I begin to wonder even more if this is all a really long dream?

Sometimes he doesn’t even go home. I’ve come down several mornings to find him curled on the couch without a blanket and his shoes still on. After he does this twice, I leave a blanket folded up on the side of the couch for him.

Three weeks after Peeta left is Christmas day. Christmas in District 12 has never been anything like the celebration that it was before the dark days. We learned in school about the way people would cut a pine tree down and bring them in their houses to decorate, buy countless gifts, have lavish dinners, and made children believe in a man called Saint Nicholas who was supposedly immortal and magical. So magical that he could deliver even more presents to children while they slept in their beds the night before Christmas.

In District 12, Christmas was only about family togetherness. Nobody put trees in their houses and nobody exchanged gifts. Some families would have a special dinner of dumplings if it could be afforded, but I never got the pleasure. Peeta did a few times, and our first Christmas after the war, he made them for me. Ever since then we have them on Christmas night and we exchange one gift.

I sent Haymitch home with orders not to come back until tomorrow and then called Peeta at the bakery. I knew he would be the one that had to answer the phone because Hakan was at home with his wife. I let the phone ring for five solid minutes before he finally picked up. With the same gentle and careful tone, I asked him how he was feeling today and if he would be up for a visit from me.

He said yes so quickly that it made me want to run out the door and to the bakery right away, but I won’t. Not until dinner. His gift was delivered a week ago and I wrapped it up last night with hopes that he would say yes to a visit so I could give it to him in person.

I sit in the kitchen bouncing my legs around on the floor waiting until I feel it’s a good time to leave the house. The sun has set over an hour ago and the snow is falling steadily, but I don’t care. I haven’t seen or talked to Peeta in almost a week. At 5:30, I grab the present and my coat and dash out the door, feeling elated because I get to see Peeta.

I’m surprised that he agreed since we’ll be the only ones there tonight, but maybe that’s a good sign. Maybe he’s starting to make sense of things and I can get him to come home tonight. I won’t ask him, I’m not supposed to, but maybe he’ll think of it on his own. I don’t know how much longer I can sleep in that bed alone.

I trudge through the snow as quickly as I can with my head down to try and block the wind that is whipping around my face. When I reach the bakery and get close to the front door, I peer in before I knock. I know he has it locked.

What I see makes my heart break. Peeta, sitting alone at the large steel working table in the dimly lit bakery kitchen, sitting in front of a bowl of what I can only assume is dumplings. I notice a second bowl waiting across from him. I continue watching him, not sure of what he’s doing.

When he shifts, frustrated, I can see what is going on. He’s trying to write. There is a small gift box in front of him, with the top off and a small, white piece of paper under his hand. He grips the pen awkwardly and puts it back to the paper, but his hand is so shaky, so unsteady, that he barely writes a letter before he stops again. I shouldn’t be watching this. It’s a private moment that even I don’t have the right to watch.

This is why he’s hardly working. I didn’t notice it last week, but I can see it clearly now. His whole body is shaking constantly and his hands can barely grip a pen anymore. I tear my eyes away and move from the windows so he doesn’t spot me, and I wait outside to give him time to finish the writing as best as he can.

After a few minutes I peer into the window again and see that he’s stopped writing. The gift box is closed now and set next to the bowl across from him. Now, he’s just sitting there with his hands between his legs, probably trying desperately to stop the shaking, as he stares straight ahead.

I knock lightly and he turns his head to the sound immediately, noticing me standing at the door. The last ounce of elation that I had on my way here dies when he gets to the door and I see his eyes. They’re even worse than before. Now, instead of just darkness, there is sadness there. It’s not ordinary sadness, though. It’s deeper than that, and it seems to be affecting every part of him. He’s not better, in fact, in some ways, I think he’s worse.

We sit at the table and I notice the gift box again, still sitting where he left it. I reach into my pocket and pull out the gift I brought and slide it across the table. He looks at it and gives me a sad smile.

“Open them after we eat?” he suggests. I nod and pick up my spoon, cutting into a dumpling and savoring the taste. I can’t help but wonder how long it took him to make this, and I can’t believe he still did.

“I’m surprised you made the dumplings this year.” I say. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it, but I need to know why he did.

“I wasn’t going to,” he says. “But then you called this morning and I knew I had to.”

“You didn’t have to. I just wanted to see you and give you your gift myself.” I tell him.

“Well I wanted us to eat together.” He shrugs. He still hasn’t picked up his spoon. “Just like we do every year.” His tone is so erratic that I need him to stop speaking for a little while. I put my head down, ending the conversation and concentrate on the bowl in front of me.

He finally picks up his spoon and I peer up just enough so that he doesn’t notice I’m watching him. When he places the spoon in the bowl the rattling from the spoon hitting the glass permeates the kitchen. After he manages to get a piece of dumpling onto the spoon, he can barely get it to his mouth.

“How long has that been happening?” I ask. His eyes dart up and he drops the spoon into the bowl, splashing the liquid onto the table.

“On and off since this started.” He admits.

“Have you told Dr. Aurelius about it?” I question. “Maybe he knows an exercise to get the shaking to stop.”

“It only works sometimes.” He says. “Today, it’s not working… clearly.”

“Let’s open the gifts then, ok?” I encourage. He nods. “You first.” I say, cocking my head in the direction of his gift. Even opening his gift is difficult for him, but after a few minutes, he manages. “It’s a camera.” I tell him after he’s taken the box out of the wrapping. We’ve never had one and I know that bothers Peeta. “I thought you’d like to take pictures of the baby.”

When his eyes meet mine the darkness that has been there is replaced by the overwhelming sadness for a fleeting moment, before they cloud over again.

“What does your book say this week?” he asks. This is the first time he’s asked about anything that has to do with the baby without me offering information first.

“Well, I’m 14 weeks now. I read last night that the baby is now the size of a clenched fist.” I say.

“That’s strange.” He quips. “All fists are different sizes.”

“I thought the same thing.” I don’t know if I should smile or laugh. It doesn’t feel like a laughing moment, but I want to over the fact that we thought the same thing.

“Make a fist.” He says. I look at him, not sure if I should but he nods. “It’s ok.” I make a fist and reach my arm across the table toward him and he cups my fist in his hands. The one is still bandaged and I can feel him shaking around my fist. I want to tell him to just keep holding onto me, maybe it will stop, but I don’t. “Bigger than the peach.” He says. “It’s still too small for people to see though.” He realizes. We both know what we’re waiting for; Dr. Aurelius has made it clear to both of us what needs to happen to help Peeta. He sets my fist back down on the table and I want to tell him not to – that it’s alright to keep holding my hand, even if it’s just to get an idea of how big his baby is now. I miss the feeling of his skin on mine in any form.

“Open your gift now.” He encourages.  I grab the box and slowly pry the lid off, noticing the piece of paper that Peeta was trying to write on earlier. I pluck it up from the box and set it on the table to see what is underneath.

It’s a small, flat piece of silver about 3 inches across with 2 baby feet engraved into it. I look back at the note and pick up the paper unfolding it. I’m met with an unstable, unfamiliar scrawl that looks painful even on paper.

_“It’s not much, but I wanted you and the baby to have a good luck charm for when I can’t be there. I still love you both.”_

I look up at him through tears and do something that I know I am forbidden to do, but at the moment I don’t care about my rules.

“Then come home.” I say. My voice is ragged and full of sadness, changing octaves after every word as I weep in front of him. “Please come home.” He shakes his head, shedding tears of his own.

“I can’t. I’m too scared.” He says.

“You know the baby is alright, you wrote it yourself. Why are you scared?” I ask, genuinely confused.

“Because, Katniss,” he begins. “Every time I sleep, every time I close my eyes it just starts all over again. I wake up every single day asking what happened to my baby and it takes hours for Hakan to calm me down and get me to realize that nothing is wrong. And when I finally do,” he lifts his hands in the air. “The shaking starts.” He wipes the tears that are obstructing his vision before continuing. “I can’t behave that way at home. I can’t. Dr. Aurelius agrees. I have to stay here until I can ward off the nightmares and the flashbacks. I can’t come home. Not yet.”

“I need you.” I remind him. His sharp intake of breath forces me to stop. His head is tilted up, looking at the fluorescent light that hangs from the bakery ceiling.

“I miss you so much,” he mutters. “I’ve tried to come home three times before I’d think better of it and turn around and come back here.” I can see he’s beginning to deteriorate again, so I stand up and grab the box with his gift and note.

“I’ll go.” I say sadly. “I have a doctor’s appointment this week, I wish you’d come.” Why he won’t, I can’t understand. He could hear the heartbeat and get even more proof that nothing is wrong, but he says he can’t. He doesn’t want to walk into the medical center looking and behaving the way that he is.

I walk home quickly, clutching the gift from Peeta in my hand. I walk to the phone before I even take off my coat and dial a number that I very rarely use.

“Mom?”

***

Three more weeks pass and Peeta still isn’t home. The visit on Christmas seemed to make things worse. I shouldn’t have begged him to come home the way I did, but I couldn’t stop myself. He has stopped agreeing to let me stop by entirely.

 The appointment with Dr. Huld after Christmas was quick and routine. Dr. Huld said the heartbeat is nice and strong. She doesn’t ask where Peeta is, even though I know she is wondering.

I talk to my mother several times a week. The first night we talked for three hours; she cried when I told her I was going to have a baby, but stopped quickly when I told her what it was doing to Peeta. She offered to help, but there’s nothing for her to do at the moment.

I don’t know why, but there’s something comforting about hearing her voice right now, even if it’s only through a phone line. She knows pregnancy better than anybody that I know and she puts my concerns to rest when we talk. For the first time in a long while, she feels like my mother.

Two weeks after Christmas, while trying to button my pants one morning, I notice the difficulty that I’m having. Even when I do get them to close, the feeling is so uncomfortable that I have to take them off. I walk to the full length mirror and look at myself from the side. If my mother were here right now she’d tell me I’ve “popped”.  She said it would seem to happen overnight, and she was right

The bump is small, but noticeable. There is a slight curve now in my lower back that makes it stand out even more. I need to show Peeta. It’s all I can think about, but I stop and think before running off. He doesn’t even want to see me right now. I need to tell Dr. Aurelius first and see what he says. I have to follow his plan to get Peeta home. If I take matters into my own hands, I could make it worse again.

When I call him, he sounds pleased with the news, but tells me to wait another week so he can talk to Peeta a few more times before we try to bring him home. I’m disappointed, but comply.

The plan is simple after Dr. Aurelius finally gets Peeta to agree to it. He knows Haymitch and I are going to come see him at the bakery. He knows that now at 17 weeks pregnant, I am showing. Dr. Aurelius has given us specific instructions to let Peeta get used to my stomach. We are to be alone but with Haymitch and Hakan close by in case something goes wrong.

_“Let him take all the time he needs to understand that bump is his baby and that you’ve been taking care of yourself and the baby all this time, and you’d never do anything to hurt it.”_

Haymitch and I walk into the bakery and Hakan smiles at me when I take my coat off.

“I can tell already.” He says. I want to smile back at him, but I don’t want to get too excited yet. Not until I know that this is actually going to work. “He’s in the office.” Hakan and Haymitch follow me back to the office and wait while I knock.

The door opens slowly and I walk in, nodding to Hakan and Haymitch before closing the door. They are to wait there to make sure everything is going according to plan.

He eyes me for a minute before he talks. “I guess we don’t have to compare it to fruit and fists anymore.” I let out a nervous laugh, relieved at his response. It sounds like something Peeta would say. I notice he isn’t shaking today, and even though I’d like to believe it’s because of me, it probably is something he worked very hard on with Dr. Aurelius this past week.

“You can touch it,” I tell him, lifting up my shirt. “It’s your baby too.” He steps forward and plants his palms on either side of my stomach, not saying anything at first.

“The baby is in there and is alright, real or not real?” He asks. I can’t believe we’ve had to resort to playing this game again after all these years, but I’m happy to hear him asking this. It’s what we have been hoping he would ask for weeks.

“Real,” I nod. “It has been there all along, Peeta. I would never do anything to hurt it.”

“Dr. Aurelius says I should try to come home.” He says.

“He’s right.” I agree. “We need you.” He drops onto the couch; his hands still on my stomach and places his lips to it, grabbing me around the waist and pulling me close.

“I am so sorry.” He says.

“Don’t be, you couldn’t help it.” I answer truthfully. We aren’t to take too long. Once he realizes he needs to come home, we are to help him pack and bring him home.

Without another word, he grabs the bag that Haymitch packed for him weeks ago, the few pairs of clothes he had that Wren washed for him are scattered around the room. I help him pack, and the last thing he grabs is the ultrasound picture that he had on his desk.

We’re not out of the woods, the flashback inducing nightmares still come, but we’re learning how to manage them. When Peeta wakes from one I grab his hands and squeeze, bringing them down to my stomach. I soothingly remind him that the baby is right here, nothing happened. As the weeks go on, he calms much easier and the nightmares begin to come less and less. They still haven’t stopped entirely, but now we know how to fight them, together.

 


	8. No Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone! Thank you all so much for your amazing response to chapter 7! I was so scared I'd be getting death threats for what I did to Katniss and Peeta in those last two chapters, but thankfully, I got none :)
> 
> This chapter is nothing like the last two and is really a lot of filler, and planting seeds for future plot points for these final 4 chapters Chapter 9 will be similar. So please enjoy the breather that is chapter 8, the major angst is DONE, it'll be a whirlwind to the big event from here on out.

I’m awake earlier than usual for a Saturday morning, standing in the shower as the warm water cascades down onto my skin. It’s so relaxing that I don’t even hear the shower door open behind me. It’s not until I feel his arms wrap around me, and the pressure of his chest against my back as he clutches me tight that I realize Peeta has gotten in with me.

“You’re up early,” he whispers hoarsely, the sounds of sleep still in his throat.

“It was time to clean up.” I reply with a smile in my voice.

After two weeks of Peeta attempting to fight flashbacks and resume his normal work schedule, it became clear to everyone that the exhaustion he worked himself into before coming home still lingered. Dr. Aurelius insisted he take a week off to catch up on his rest and relax away from the bakery. He didn’t want to. He felt he already put his crew through more than enough, but they agreed with Dr. Aurelius. Hakan juggled the schedule, and Peeta stayed home.

We’ve both spent the entire week in bed doing nothing more than sleeping and making love. The flashbacks are few and far between now that the exhaustion is waning. The less sleep he gets, the more prone he is to a flashback.

Haymitch stopped by the first twice during the week. He never comes upstairs, no matter what the situation is. Not even when Peeta was gone and he was taking care of me. The first day, we were sleeping until his screaming voice invaded the whole second floor. He stayed for five minutes until he realized he was being ignored. The second day, it was our sounds that invaded the first floor when he walked in. He screamed at us again, something about that’s what got us into this pregnancy situation in the first place and promptly left the house, slamming the door behind him as he went.

If things around here were as they usually were, I’d be angry that Haymitch had the nerve to even utter a word to make his presence known when he knew what we were doing, but I’m too happy having Peeta home to even care that he did something so reprehensible. Peeta found it funny and the sound of his muffled laughter, and the feeling of his hot breath on my neck as he kept his rhythm going despite the interruption caused me to join in on the laughter. We’d leave the bedroom long enough every night to gorge on food in our underwear, then head straight back to the bedroom, abandoning what little clothing we had on to begin with.

“Are you trying to wash me off of you?” he asks, leaning his head down to suck on the curve where my neck meets my shoulder.

“I didn’t want to,” I sigh at the feeling of his mouth on me. He continues to run his lips and tongue over me; from the crook of my neck to my back, spending extra time at my neck where he pushes my wet hair away and kisses right between my shoulder blades. “But three days without a shower is where I draw the line.” He moans low in the back of his throat, lips still pressed to my back which tells me he’s done talking for right now.

He moves over my wet skin, tracing the dip in my back that has formed to accommodate my growing stomach with his fingers, kneading the small of my back with his thumbs.  It feels so good; I don’t want him to stop. I want to protest when he takes his hands away, but the words are lost when he brings his mouth back down to my neck, sucking gently and giving my skin a small nip as he pulls his head up to my jaw before resuming.

The sound of his moan echoes through the bathroom when I reach back and grab his hair, and his mouth pulls harder on the space under my ear just briefly before he moves again and his lips are flush with my ear.

“I want you just like this.” He says gravelly. He presses his hips to my backside and I can feel his hardness. His hands travel lower, reaching out and around me, smoothing over the stomach bump that can’t be missed anymore and settling on my hips.

Lately it’s felt as though I can never get enough of him. When he’s awake, I want him. When he’s asleep, I want him. Everything that he does makes me want him, and the more I get it, the worse that desire seems to get.

“Please,” I choke out, tightening my grip on his hair. I need to feel him filling me up, but he won’t cooperate yet. He keeps moving his hips, rubbing against me, and I push back on him, urging him to take me.

Instead, he moves his right hand lower until he’s between my legs; I feel his middle finger lightly graze between my folds. I wiggle my hips, trying to get his finger to slip in just enough, but he pulls his hand back, teasing.

His hand runs down my back, lightly pushing me forward as he moves down my spine until I’m bent slightly and his left hand grasps my hip. I can feel him using his other hand to guide himself into me. I push back again, meeting him, and we both let out a satisfied moan when we’re finally joined.

After we’ve finished, washed, and toweled off, Peeta throws on a pair of red lounge pants, while I put on a similar blue pair and one of his t-shirts just in case Haymitch attempts to stop by. We move to the kitchen for breakfast for the first time since Peeta has been off work.

“We should go into town today or tomorrow for food, we’re running low.” Peeta says, peering into the fridge.

Even listening to him saying something like this causes me to smile lately. To hear something so normal come out of his mouth after such a long time of being disoriented is a relief. I watch him move around the kitchen, silently cracking eggs into a bowl with one hand, whipping them with a little milk, and pouring them into the frying pan. I get up to help him, but he stops me.

“Sit, I can do it.” He smiles before turning around to start on the bacon he’s also taken out.

“Watch the grease,” I warn. “You don’t have a shirt on.” Even trying to hide it, my voice comes out strained and I try to think of other things to stop the heat from spreading from my cheeks, down into my stomach, but it’s too late. Dr. Huld said this might happen, but I was too worried -- too consumed with thoughts about getting Peeta home to even consider the day when my hormones would make it nearly impossible to get through the day without wanting to drag Peeta right back up to bed.

Haymitch can scream at us all he wants, it won’t change anything. Peeta is home, I’m starting to feel comfortable with my body’s changes, and the things it does to Peeta are threatening to consume both of us for another week. He needs to be back at work on Monday, and I’m dreading it already.

“So, we’re halfway there, you know,” Peeta says after he’s dished out breakfast. “We should probably decide where the baby is going to be born.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “I’ve been thinking we’d have the baby here at home, the way it was always done before.” Nobody ever went to a hospital or medical center to give birth, at least not in District 12. They delivered at home, and if things took too long they would show up on our doorstep, begging my mother to help them.

“I know,” Peeta nods. “But now that we have a medical center available, I think we should use it.”

“I’d feel more comfortable here.” I argue. Peeta opens his mouth to response, but the words seem to die in his throat.

“We have time to decide.” He says finally with a simple nod.  

By Monday, I’m even less thrilled that Peeta is going back to the bakery. I walk him to the door, gripping his hand and he chuckles at me before prying his hand away.

“I’ll see you in a few hours,” he promises, tucking my hair behind my ear. He leans in and speaks in a whisper. “I want you for lunch.”

“You can have me right now.” I whisper back, and I hear him chuckle again.

“I’d love to, but I’ve left them alone at the bakery far too long. I need to go back.” Peeta says. He sounds like he’s trying to convince both of us that it’s a good idea to go back today. He cups his hands over my stomach and kisses me, capturing my bottom lip in his teeth before he pulls away and jogs down the steps. I watch him as he walks away, staring until I can’t see him anymore.

“Can I get a second to talk to you now that he’s gone?” Haymitch interrupts. “I didn’t think you’d ever show your faces again.” I motion for him to follow me into the house and make a plate for him from what was left over from breakfast.

“Thanks, Sweetheart.” He says, jabbing his fork into the pile of scrambled eggs and shoving them into his mouth.

“So what did you want to talk about?” I ask. I try to keep the impatience out of my voice, but when Haymitch looks up at me with a look on his face that might resemble offense if he weren’t smiling; I know I didn’t do a very good job.

“Don’t get grumpy because he had to go to work,” he warns me. “I just wanted to see how you guys were doing. It sounded like you were doing just fine the other day, but I couldn’t be sure.”

I want to yell at him and tell him that it was none of his business to say a word last week, but I suddenly hear Johanna in my head. _“He keeps teasing you because he sees how mad it makes you, Brainless. If you don’t show him you’re pissed off, he’ll get bored.”_

“We’re alright,” I nod, taking Johanna’s advice. I haven’t told her yet. If I can get Haymitch out of here quickly, maybe I’ll write her a letter today and tell her about the baby. “He still scares me though.”

“Why?” Haymitch asks. It’s a simple question that sounds genuinely concerned. As much as Haymitch angers me, he has really been a help during Peeta’s absence. I know it would be wrong if I refused to talk to him about it.

“His eyes still don’t look right, and now that he’s gone again…” I look down at my hands on the table and wait, letting the tears that have begun to prick my eyes dry up. I’ve done enough crying these last few weeks to last a lifetime, I won’t do it again today.

“You’re afraid he won’t come home again.” Haymitch finishes for me. I nod, letting him know he’s right. “That won’t happen. Even if it means me going up there and dragging him back by his hair.” This makes me laugh; the image of Haymitch trying to drag Peeta from the bakery to The Victor’s Village is an amusing one.

“I’d like to see you try that.” I smirk.

“But besides that. How’s everything?” He won’t ask how the pregnancy is going outright – I don’t know why.

“Well I don’t feel sick anymore,” I announce proudly. “I’m trying to adjust to having this leading me around all day, though.” I place my hands on my stomach. “And just when I start to feel comfortable with it, I remember that it’s only going to get bigger.”

“But you’re halfway there, right?” Haymitch asks. I’ve only told him how far along I was once, he must be keeping track himself.

“21 weeks today, so more than halfway.” Haymitch nods in approval and gets up from his seat, telling me to take care of myself and to keep him posted on any changes. Either Johanna was right about ignoring his goading, or Haymitch still isn’t sure how to behave around a pregnant woman. Or maybe it’s just because that pregnant woman is me.

I start my letter to Johanna quickly, wondering if it may be better to just call her and tell her, knowing her reaction will be one that should be remembered. Because of that, I decide on a letter, that way her response will always be there on paper for us to read in the future.

At first, I try to ignore the writhing feeling deep in my stomach. I write the letter as planned, trying not to pay attention to anything but the news I am sharing with Johanna, but when the writhing becomes rhythmic thumping, I can’t ignore it anymore.

I’ve been feeling something like butterflies in my stomach for the last few weeks, but I just attributed it to all of the nerves, this this isn’t nerves. This is the baby.

The sound of my pen hitting the floor ignites a spark of terror deep within me, and I can barely see straight. The words I had composed to Johanna are now just blurs of black on white.

Peeta. I need Peeta here to fix this. To tell me that everything is fine, and convince me without a shadow of a doubt that this is a good thing to be feeling. I need to hear him tell me that there is nothing to be afraid of, but he’d be wrong. This makes everything real, and there is plenty to be afraid of.

The vision of that little heartbeat I saw all those week ago floods my vision and the nightmares of that small fluttering ceasing to exist are now playing out while I’m awake. As much as these new movements terrify me, I’d be lying if I said I wanted them to stop. What does it mean when they’ve stopped?

Frantic, I press my hand to my stomach, trying to urge the movement to continue, but it doesn’t. Before I realize it, I’m sitting with my ear to the phone, listening to the sounds of the ring, waiting to hear the voice that I know will be able to help me right now.

“Hello?”

“Mom?” I try to hide the way my voice is shaking, the signal that I’m one step away from losing it.

“Katniss, what’s wrong?” The concern in her voice does nothing to calm me down. That’s not what I need to hear right now.

“The baby was moving.” Saying it out loud sounds stupid. Of course the baby would be moving and it was only a matter of time before I felt it. The silence on the other end of the phone urges me to continue. “It just makes things real now.”

“Honey, it was always real.”

“What do you do when it stops? I can’t feel it anymore.” I ask.

“Just relax, Katniss.” She says. The soothing tone I was hoping to hear is back. It’s the same tone she used to use when I was small and didn’t feel well – it’s the same tone she used when I called her on Christmas. “She can’t move all the time, she’s tiny. She gets tired quickly.”

“She?”

“I just don’t like calling babies ‘it’, so the baby is a she today,” mother says. “I’d have to see how you’re carrying to make a real guess at what the gender is.”

“We haven’t even had the time to think about what it’ll be.” Up until this point I hadn’t thought about referring to my unborn child as “it”, but now it just sounds terrible.

“Your father and I gave you names before you were born,” she begins. “We didn’t want to name you until we met you, but until then we gave you girls nicknames so we’d never call you ‘it’ ever.”

“What were they?” I ask. I know she’s telling me this more to keep my mind off of the real reason I called, and I don’t know how to thank her for doing it.

“You were Peanut, and Prim…” she’s always silent for a moment after mentioning her. It must be her way of paying her respects. “She was Nugget.” I smile in spite of myself at this revelation. Why hadn’t she ever told us this before?

“Maybe Peeta and I will do that.” I state.

“How is Peeta?” mother asks. “Is he feeling better?”

“He’s doing a lot better. He went back to work today, the doctor made him take a week off to rest.”

“Good, tell him I said hello.”

We talk for another ten minutes before I decide to let her go. She assures me several times that it’s alright for the movements to stop, but I know when it happens again that her words will be lost on me. For now though, talking to her has helped enough to get me to finish Johanna’s letter and get it sealed and ready for Peeta to drop off for mailing in the morning.

Peeta finds me on the couch a few hours later, lying flat on my back with both hands cupping my stomach. His smile disappears as soon as he looks at me, and he’s by my side in an instant. Before he can ask me what’s wrong, I tell him.

“The baby was kicking.” I tell him. He tries to hide the look of relief on his face, but I can still see it. He wasn’t expecting me to say that.

“What? Today?” I nod and take a deep breath, letting it out shakily and the relief on Peeta’s face also disappears. It’s now been replaced with a look of concern. “Katniss, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. “When it starts, I want it to stop.”

“Why?”

“Because now there’s a constant reminder of another child I might fail.” Peeta motions for me to sit up, and he moves down onto the couch, pulling me back to rest on his leg. “But now I don’t want them to stop either. Stopping just makes me think she died. It’s like there’s no escape.”

“Since when is the baby a she?” Peeta asks.

“I’m not sure,” I shrug. “I called my mom earlier and she started calling the baby she, and I just wanted to see what it felt like to say it.”

“Well, maybe _she_ got sleepy.” He says, testing the word. “She can’t move around all the time.” He rakes his fingers through my hair gently.

“We should give him or her a nickname, so we don’t have to say ‘It’ all the time.”

“Did you have anything in mind?” He asks. I glance up at him and notice the smile on his face. How could something that scares me so much be the thing he needed to be happy? There really is no escape.

“What about ‘Baby’? It’s simple, and pretty uncreative, but I just like saying it.” I suggest.

“Baby,” Peeta repeats. “Well, I think Baby is just napping.” Peeta smiles. It’s not Peanut or Nugget, but it’s ours all the same. Our Baby.

And he’s right, because an hour later when the movements begin again, Peeta can tell by the way I tense up and grab my stomach. He tries to assure me that things are exactly as they should be, but it does little to help. All I can think about is living in terror for the next 19 weeks. Wondering if something is wrong every time he or she stops moving. Peeta places his hands on my stomach were I tell him I feel the movements, but he can’t feel anything.

That night, we read one of the books from Dr. Aurelius, and it echoes what my mother and Peeta said. Movements will come and go as the baby goes from sleeping to moving around. Before long, I should start to sense a pattern of when Baby is awake and asleep, but he or she is not strong enough yet to be felt from the outside.

Peeta tries to feel the movements every time they start when he’s home, but he is constantly let down when he can’t. I try to remind him what the book says, but he wants to feel it so badly that I don’t think he cares what the book says anymore.

The look on his face three weeks later when he finally feels a kick for the first time can only be described as pure elation. It takes days to wipe the smile off of his face, and even though every thump, squirm, and kick Baby gives us still terrifies me, there’s something slightly calming in the way it affects Peeta. I haven’t seen his eyes look this clear in months. 


	9. Kinship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are back with Peeta for this chapter, and after this one, things will be a whirlwind until the end, so get ready!

_“Are you comfortable?” My hands slide up her thighs and grip her knees tightly as her own drift to settle on my hips. She uses her thumbs to stroke the creases of my inner thighs tenderly while she rolls her hips over the two pillows propped under her. Once she’s settled, she scoots down slightly and brings her feet to my chest._

_“Yes,” she uses the hold she has on my hips in attempts to pull me closer, causing my erection to rub against her middle and a soft moan to escape from her lips. Taking advantage of the situation, I pull back and repeat the motion, making sure to hit her most sensitive spot. Each time I drag myself back over her, she arches her back up further until she’s hovering above the pillows that were set under her. I shake my head at the sight._

_“You need another pillow,” I tell her soothingly. She nods in agreement, letting go of my hips and allowing me to grab a third pillow to prop under her. We settle back into position, but this time I keep one hand on her knee while the other finds her core. I begin to rub small circles, watching as her eyes close and she inhales deeply. “How’s that?”_

_“Perfect,” she whispers. “Don’t stop.”_

_I continue the motion as her feet begin to slide up my chest and come to rest on my shoulders. I lean forward, taking my fingers away and replacing them with my palm, beginning to rub again as Katniss moves her hands, coasting them over my chest._

_“You want to come, don’t you?” I ask. She’s rocking her hips almost involuntarily under my palm, letting gentle moans fall from her lips like a song. I pull my hand away and watching her eyes pop open – I smirk before asking her again, “You want to come, don’t you?” The expression on her face is a mix of longing and irritation. “Want my hand on you again?” I continue, moving my hand down and gently pushing two fingers inside. “Inside you?”_

_“Do it,” she coaxes. At her words, I curl my fingers inside her and pull back, brushing the spot at the top of her walls that always causes her to cry out. I know I’ve hit it when the sound of her voice murmuring my name echoes through the room and her hands break away from my chest to wrap around the back of my neck. “Right there,” she groans._

_As I work her, I run my hand from her knee, down her thigh and plant soft kisses on her calf before the hand comes to rest flat just below her stomach. Using my thumb, I find her nerve and begin to work there too as my fingers move inside her._

_Her arms fall from around my neck, and she throws them over her head while I work up the slow build to her release. When I feel her walls begin to clench around my fingers, I turn my head and kiss her leg again, slowing down the motions my thumb was making while she rides out the waves of her orgasm._

_“You’re beautiful,” I tell her after every tremor has passed. I can tell she doesn’t believe me. She doesn’t feel so beautiful lately, but I’m having trouble seeing how she could possibly be more beautiful than right now. “You are.” I readjust my position so my erection – which is now almost painful after watching Katniss writhe under my touch – is in line with her middle once more._

_“I’m not,” she argues, bringing her arms back around my neck._

_“Yes,” I retort firmly. I lean forward slightly; looking at her while I wedge my hands under her shoulders and hold her. Without using my hands to guide myself, I find her center and bury myself in her with one smooth motion.  “You are.”_

_With her feet still resting on my shoulders, I move with slow, deliberate strokes, reveling in every feeling and sound I can. Sometimes we are so wrapped up in each other that we forget to pay attention to the small things. The way my hips rest perfectly between her legs when I can’t possibly push into her any further, the way she always moves her hands to touch me as I begin to pull back and away from her, and the almost inaudible whimpers of relief that slip from her mouth every time I push back in._

_For the second time, her walls constrict around me, her breath hitching as she tries to say my name. I lean back, continuing the slow push and pull into her as my hands find every part of her body that I can reach. They ghost over her shoulders, down her sides and to her thighs, then back up to her legs where I kiss her one last time before my release takes hold of me and I’m overcome._

Over the last 9 weeks our love making has changed. From constant to periodic, the frequency has decreased as Katniss’ discomfort has increased. But 5 weeks ago, when the baby’s kicks were strong enough to be felt on the outside, a level of intimacy formed between us that never existed before. They started out small – quick, tiny bumps that I had to keep asking about.

_“Was that one?” I ask. My hand is settled on Katniss’ stomach, and her hand is cupped over mine, guiding me to where she feels the movement. Our free hands are linked together tightly, keeping Katniss steady._

_The look of relief that was cast across her face when the movement started was quickly wiped away as the terror seized her, and she was reaching for me. We know it won’t go away, not until Baby is in her arms and alright, but having me here when it happens keeps her calmer than when I am at the bakery, she says._

_“It was,” Katniss confirms. There’s a small smile playing around the corners of her mouth, but it’s probably in response to my reaction. I will never get over how amazing this is. I know she understands, even if she’s too scared to let herself dwell on it._

Eventually, the kicks became so strong that they could not only be felt from the outside, but seen. Now, at 30 weeks, there’s never any doubt that the baby is moving, especially in moments like this.

The bedroom is silent; Katniss is lying back, turned in on her side toward me. My head rests lightly on her breasts as she lazily rakes her fingers through my hair. This action, I’ve noticed, calms her when the baby really gets moving. Her shirt is raised just enough to reveal her stomach, and I watch, smoothing my hand over the bump as it contorts with the movements – one moves right under my hand, poking up and tickling my palm.

“I think Baby had the hiccups today,” Katniss says breaking the silence. “Remember the book said that sometimes movements will feel like they’re in a pattern and it’s usually hiccups?”

“Yes,” I nod, keeping my eyes focused on her stomach. It’s not often that Katniss will mention movements that occurred when I’m not here, but it seems as though the baby’s hiccups amused her, because she chuckles after I reply.

“I felt that today – one by one, every 10 or 15 seconds for almost 20 minutes.” She explains.

“How did that make you feel?”

“Scared,” she shifts further onto her side. “But for different reasons than I usually am.” I stay silent, waiting for her to continue. “Remember what else the book said?”

“What?” The book says a lot of things, but Katniss seems to be far more dedicated to it than I am.

“That hiccups are a sign of a healthy baby that is preparing for life outside the womb.” She recites the line from the book from memory, and I have to wonder just how much she reads these books while I’m away at work. “Life outside the womb….” She repeats. “What if I’m a bad mother?”

“I don’t see how you could be,” I move off of her, sitting up and taking her hand. “You’re already doing an amazing job.”

“I just need to know he or she is alright.” She sounds so scared and her eyes look distant, as though she’s remembering something.

“Everything has been fine, and it’ll stay fine. I promise.” She shakes her head at my words.

“Do you know how many women in The Seam had perfect pregnancies and came to my mother to deliver a dead baby?” she asks. “Too many.”

“It’s different now,” I assure her. “You’ve been seeing Dr. Huld the entire time, you eat better than they did, and you’ve been doing everything by that book.”

“But it’s no guarantee.” She insists.

“No, it’s not, but what is?” I don’t know what to tell her. There’s nothing that I can say that will wipe away the fear of something going wrong. The only thing that will fix this is seeing the baby alive and healthy for herself.

“I want my mother here for the birth.” It’s sudden and seemingly out of nowhere, but I can tell by her tone that she’s been thinking about this for a while.

“Of course,” I reply. “She’s your mother.” Katniss has been talking to her mother a lot since getting pregnant. Now that Katniss is about to become a mother herself, there seems to be an understanding that has formed between them that‘s unspoken, but present at all times.

“And I want the baby born here.” Katniss adds.

“Here?”

“At home, in our room. Just me, you, and my mother.” I know there is no changing her mind. She sounds like she knows exactly what she wants, and even though I’d feel more comfortable if the baby were born at the medical center, it’s important that Katniss is the one who is comfortable, so I decide not to argue.

“Just us three?” I ask. Then, the realization of what she is saying finally hits me. “You want your mother to deliver the baby?”

“I’ve been trying to think of ways to tell Dr. Huld for weeks now.” She pulls our hands closer to her face, staring at our linked fingers. “Would you call her?” she asks sheepishly.

“Sure,” I pull our hands apart, forcing her to look at me. “You’d let your mother do that?”

“Who better?” She’s right. It was never talked about in town beyond whispers, but before the war, if a merchant woman had a difficult pregnancy she often found herself in The Seam. Delly used to say they would hide their faces with a blanket or large coat while they walked over from the town to The Seam so nobody would see them, all because they wanted Katniss’ mother to help deliver their babies instead of the town healer. After the mining accident that killed her husband, the whispers changed to wishes that she’d resume practicing, because she truly was the best in the district.

“Are you sure your mother will be able to do it?” I don’t want to agree to anything that isn’t certain, not with how hopeful Katniss looks right now.

“She only works fill in shifts at the hospital now, I’m sure if we ask her soon she can do it.” Katniss explains. She really has been thinking about this. “I want you there when I ask her.”

“When do you want to do it?” I know we have to do this soon, there isn’t much time left.

“I usually call her on Tuesdays,” Katniss sits up, the hopeful look still etched on her face.

“That’s tomorrow.”

“After you get home from the bakery?” She squeezes my hand when I nod and peppers soft kisses across my face.

“Is that for helping you with this or agreeing to have the baby here?” I ask jokingly. She slaps my arm before turning herself around and scooting toward the edge of the bed. I hop off the other side quickly and meet her as she swings her legs over the mattress. “Up you go,” I smile, extending my hand to her and pulling her up. “Let’s go make dinner, Haymitch will be here soon.”

***

“Sit down, Sweetheart,” Haymitch says from his seat. “You look like you’re about to topple over soon.” He points at her stomach and she rolls her eyes, ignoring him and grabbing a bowl of potatoes.

“So, we decided that we’re going to have the baby here at home,” I tell him, trying to change the subject. He looks relieved. He has never said it, but he wants to be close when the baby is born. When we were discussing going to the medical center for the birth, he never sounded thrilled. I imagine it’s because he would rather not spend time there. He will never be a people person, and the medical center is the busiest place in the district.

Neither one of us mentions Katniss’ mother to Haymitch yet. We still don’t even know if she will be able to do it. It’s better to have all of the details set before we start to tell people. Tomorrow, when we make the phone call, we will also be calling the medical center to inform Dr. Huld of our decision. If things happen to fall through with our original plan, we can go from there. But I really hope that Katniss’ mom can do this for us, it’ll be the choice that will make Katniss the most comfortable and that’s what’s important to me.

I look over and notice that Katniss looks tense – by now, it’s second nature and I can tell when the baby is kicking, without even having to feel it for myself. Quietly, I walk over to where she stands at the sink draining pasta, and I wrap my arms around her, setting my chin down on her shoulder.

“I’m right here,” I whisper. Haymitch says nothing. In fact, out of the corner of my eye I can see he’s doing everything he can to not even look at us. He knows how the movements have affected Katniss. But it seems that Haymitch can only hold his tongue for so long before he’s reaching across the kitchen table for the piece of paper that was left there.

“What’s this?” Haymitch grabs for the folded paper on the kitchen table before either of us could stop him.

“Give it to me, Haymitch,” I threaten. “It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit,” he retorts, unfolding the paper and scanning it quickly. He laughs menacingly as soon as he realizes what it is. “This is a letter from Johanna!” He settles back in his chair and scans the letter further, laughing quietly to himself as he does.

“A letter for me and Peeta,” Katniss says, attempting to snatch the letter from him but her stomach gets in the way of the table and she can’t reach.

“Haymitch, it’s private,” I add.

“Eloquent as always, that Johanna,” Haymitch says, ignoring me. “I especially like this line – _He knocked you up!? Did you know about this or did he ‘forget’ to pull out?_ ”

Katniss’ face floods with rage, and while Haymitch’s nose is buried in the letter, I move around the table, fed up with him ignoring us.

“ _Do you still have sex knowing that there’s a little human in your stomach getting knocked around?”_ Haymitch guffaws and slaps his knee, not caring that what he is reading was not meant for him, but stops abruptly when my arm comes up around his neck.

“Drop it,” I demand. He makes exaggerated gagging noises as he lets the letter fall from his grip. Katniss picks it up quickly and shoved it into a drawer after I let go of Haymitch.

“What the hell is your problem?!” he spits. “Do you think it’s funny going around putting old men in choke holds?”

“When he thinks it’s funny to read a private letter out loud, yes.” I snap.

Katniss is still fuming by the time dinner is served, stabbing her food as though each piece was Haymitch. He leaves quickly that night, knowing that what he did was not nearly as funny as he originally thought it was. He’ll never apologize, he never does, but seeing him sulk back to his house is enough. It may be time for another conversation about boundaries and respect again.

***

The phone call with Dr. Huld goes smoothly. I called her office from the bakery, knowing that she is rarely available when calling at random. I left a message with the receptionist to call me at home after 1pm, and she did. I explained to her that Katniss would be much more comfortable with a home birth, and while I felt bad telling her that we wouldn’t need her to deliver our child even though she has been Katniss’ doctor from the beginning, she understood.

She gave us the number of a midwife in the district and suggested that we call her and meet with her even if Katniss’ mother is able to come out for the birth. Thankfully the phone wasn’t on speaker when Dr. Huld mentioned that there is always the chance of there being a complication and having a backup plan was essential. Katniss didn’t hear a word of it, and sat next to me by the phone, waiting to call her mother.

After I am off the phone with Dr. Huld, Katniss moves to the seat and I stand next to her, waiting for her to dial the number and put the phone on speaker so we can both talk about our decision.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little bit shocked that Katniss came to this decision. Over the years, her mother has tried to come and visit at least once a year since our Toasting. It has never been something that Katniss has been particularly excited about, and her last visit was a short and uncomfortable one back when we were still trying to get pregnant.

I’ve always gotten along with her. She has a lot of interesting stories about District 12, and I find the ones about my father as a child to be the most interesting. Through her, I’ve learned things about him that I would probably have never known otherwise.

Katniss has trouble seeing past the issues the two of them had through the years, but there have been evenings where we would all sit in the living room together, listening to stories about the way my father used to try to convince every teacher they had that his homework was already turned in, taking the extra time he got to finish it up, only then acting as though he’d found it in his book. Katniss always seemed interested in learning these things too, and it was during moments like that where I saw that if Katniss could put aside her differences with her mother, that there could be a mother and daughter relationship again. It may be too much to hope that our child will be the one to bring them together again, but so far, it has really been a big help.

Katniss dials the number and puts the phone on speaker – the sound of the rings stream from the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, mom,” Katniss says. Her tone is laid back, like this is what was normal now. “You’re on speaker, I’ve got Peeta here.”

“I was wondering why you didn’t call earlier,” she answers. “Hi, Peeta.”

“Hi, mom,” I greet her. Katniss takes a deep breath next to me, ready to get straight to the topic.

“We have something to ask you, mom.” She begins. “We were wondering if you’d be able to be here for the birth of the baby.” The line goes silent. I’m just getting ready to ask if she’s still there when she speaks up.

“Really?” She’s shocked. She may even be crying.

“There’s more,” I cut in. “Katniss wants you to be the one to deliver the baby.” Again, the line goes silent.

“Katniss?” she asks. It’s as though she needs to hear it from Katniss to believe it’s true.

“Would you, mom?” Katniss asks hopefully. “I’d really be more comfortable with you.”

“Of course I’ll do it,” there’s no hesitation this time, and she’s definitely crying now. “As long as you’re comfortable with it, I will be there for you guys.”

“So what do we do next?” I ask. “We’re ten weeks away from the due date, what has to be done?” If we’re having the baby at home, I want to have everything prepared and ready.

“Did you alert the medical center of your decision? It’s best that they know.” She stops there, knowing better than to mention the possibility of complications with Katniss present.

“I did that before we called you.” Katniss hasn’t said a word. I look at her and notice a look of relief on her face that I haven’t seen in a long time.

“I can bring everything you’re going to need for the birth,” she offers. “The only thing I can think of for you to do before I get there is get extra sheets for the bed; we’ll need them when we prep the bed.”

“When can you get here?” Katniss asks, finally breaking her silence.

“When do you want me there?”

“Soon.” Katniss says.

“I could come out in 7 weeks when you hit full term,” she suggests. “The baby can come any time after that.” The baby could come any time before that too, but it’s another reality we are avoiding today. I look at Katniss and nod, having her mother here for the final three weeks of the pregnancy will be helpful. While I’m away at the bakery, Katniss will have someone with her. Someone that knows much more than I do about pregnancy and labor.

“That sounds perfect.” I answer.

“Perfect,” Katniss repeats. “Just let us know when your train will be here and we’ll meet you at the station.”

“I will, Katniss,” she says. “I’ll see you guys in 7 weeks.”

“See you in 7 weeks.” We both answer, hanging up the phone.

 

 


	10. Cusp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hi, everyone! Just 2 chapters and an epilogue left for this story. I can't believe it's almost over. Fun fact: This will be the first story I've EVER completed. I tend to start stories and either abandon them, or lose steam and run out of ideas (I'm not counting Synchronicity since there really is no ending point there as it is a collection of stories). Since I fully outlined this story, and people have been enjoying it, it has really given me the motivation to write and not want to stop. This is why reviews and feedback are important. I don't think I would have been able to even get this close to the end otherwise.
> 
> Anyway, this is a pretty quiet chapter that I wanted to use to kind of show readers the relationship between Peeta and Mrs. Everdeen. We will get a lot more Mrs. Everdeen/Katniss moments in chapters 11 and 12, so don't get sad if you don't find anything between them here. This is Peeta's POV, so I want to save those mother daughter moments for the final Katniss POV chapter (11).
> 
> Enjoy!

On the last day in May, I find myself walking alone to the train station. Katniss wanted to come – in fact, she insisted. But I couldn’t expect her to walk the mile and a half to the train station and back in the late spring heat at 37 weeks pregnant. She argued, _“I’m pregnant, not dying,”_ but I still couldn’t. In the end, I managed to get her to stay home by promising to make her glazed carrots for dinner after getting home.

By the time I get to the station, mom is already waiting on the platform. There are two large suitcases at her feet, and one in her hand, while another bag is slung over her shoulder. Even though they aren’t used as much anymore, the carts for hauling shipments from The Capitol are still lined up at the station, and I grab one before I finally make my way over to her.

“I’m sorry you had to stand here and wait for me,” I apologize, greeting her with a quick hug. “Katniss wanted to come.”

“Even after I told her she shouldn’t,” mom says, shaking her head. “I guess pregnancy hasn’t made her any less stubborn.”

“No,” I laugh, grabbing the first suitcase and loading it onto the cart. “If anything it has made her even more stubborn.”

After the three suitcases have been loaded, we begin to walk back to the Victor’s Village. Mom still has her bag slung over her shoulder while I push the cart. I am suddenly overcome with the realization of what this visit means. This isn’t just any visit from my wife’s mother – she is here to deliver our first child.

“So, Katniss says you only work fill in shifts at the hospital now?” I question, trying to avoid an awkward silence.

“I’m not getting any younger,” she begins, “I’ve seen too well what running around a hospital can do to a person as they age. With the pay I’ve been making since the hospital opened, I’ve been able to make a nice nest egg for myself that allows me to only work when someone else can’t make their shift.”

“That’s great,” I smile. “Do you like having all that extra time on your hands?”

“Well, it has given me a lot of time to think about how far I’m going to be from my grandbaby,” she says.

“You can come out to see Baby whenever you want,” I remind her.

“Oh, I know,” she nods, but her voice still sounds sad, “I just wish I had it in me to move back here and see you three all the time. I’ve missed out on so much.” She hoists the bag’s strap further up her shoulder, more as a nervous action than anything else it seems. “I’m sorry -- I know I’m not the only one that lost people here.”

Her apology takes me back to the day Katniss yelled at her mother on a similar walk home from the train station 10 years ago. She accused her of being selfish for not even thinking about how Prim’s death would impact Katniss who had no choice but to come back here. It was resentment that had been bubbling for over 5 years at that point, and resentment that would never really go away.

“You don’t have to apologize, it was a long time ago,” I say.

“And how are _you_ doing, Peeta?” The way she asks the question tells me she’s not asking to be polite. I grimace when I think about all of the trouble I caused with my flashbacks.

“I really feel horrible about all of that,” I admit. “I can’t believe I put her through that.”

“You did what you thought was best for your wife and child at the time,” she says. Her voice doesn’t have an ounce of judgment in it. “And in the state that you were in, being able to make a decision like that is very admirable.”

“It was so bad,” I say sadly. “So bad… how could I ever think she’d want to hurt her own child when the entire reason she didn’t want children for so long was because she was afraid of it being harmed?”

“It wasn’t you, Peeta, you know that.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any less guilty about it,” I reply.

“But you are doing much better now, that’s what’s important. Your baby is almost here. Don’t forget to enjoy this final stretch because you are too busy being guilty. These are moments you will never have again with this baby.”

Talking to her like this has really helped me understand even more why Katniss wants her around for this. Not only does she know what she’s doing, but she’s soothing. It makes me wonder how many times over the years she has said these words to other expecting couples, and how many times she’s had to sooth the ones whose babies would never even get to take their first breath. Because of that, I try to push my guilt aside and focus on what really matters right now, and I can’t thank Katniss or her mother enough for pushing aside their own issues for the sake of our child.

“Thank you,” I smile, hoping that my voice holds every last bit of the gratitude that I feel right now. She nods and smiles back, looking forward to the Victor’s Village that sits several hundred yards in front of us.

“And how has Katniss been doing? Is she getting any better with the kicking?” she asks.

“Not really,” I shake my head, “They are easier for her to get through when I’m there, but when they start and she is alone, it takes me hours sometimes to get her calm when I get home. She is just so scared that something is going to go wrong, and nothing that I say will get rid of that.”

“It won’t, but you can calm her down and that’s going to have to be good enough. This is a fear that women have even without going through what Katniss did.”

“So it’s a common fear, but worse for her.” I say, starting to understand.

When we reach the Victor’s Village, Katniss is outside watering the garden. She turns around when she hears the cart rolling closer and waves at us, turning off hose and slowly walking toward us.

“I was getting bored in the house,” Katniss says. She looks to her mother then who has dropped her bag from her shoulder and is staring at her very pregnant daughter with a look that I could only imagine is astonishment. Katniss looks embarrassed at her mother’s staring, but walks to her anyway, putting her arms out in front of her and meeting her mother in an awkward hug.

Even my hugs with Katniss are awkward these days with the way Katniss’ stomach protrudes in front of her. The distance it puts between us makes me feel as though I’m miles away from her, even when my arms are wrapped around her tightly.

“You look beautiful,” I can hear mom whisper to Katniss before pulling away. She looks at the bump once more before picking her bag back up from the floor.

“Let’s go in the house, it’s cooler in there,” Katniss says, waiting for her mother to fall into step with her before starting up the front steps.

We chop fresh fruit and put out a pitcher of iced tea before sitting down at the kitchen table. I notice in the sink that Katniss has already taken out the carrots for dinner, and I smile and shake my head at her when she sees I’ve spotted them.

“So, what do we have to do to prepare for labor?” I ask, grabbing a piece of watermelon from my plate.

“Peeta wanted to have the baby at the medical center, so he wants to be ready for this.” Katniss says. There’s an air of teasing in her voice, and her mother chuckles at the look we exchange.

“Don’t worry, Peeta,” mom says, “there isn’t much that needs to be done right now. Every labor is different, so it’s not possible to truly be prepared. I brought all of the supplies we’ll need, plus more. That’s as prepared as we can be right now.”

Katniss nods, seeming satisfied, but I still have a million questions.

“What happens when labor starts?” I ask.

“You tell me,” she smiles. This is routine for her, but it isn’t for us. “There isn’t much else than I can tell you, because we have no idea when or how this is going to happen.” She looks at Katniss then.  “Have you been having contractions yet?”

“Just those small ones,” Katniss says. “Dr. Huld called them practice contractions.”

“How do you know the difference between a practice contraction and a real contraction?” I ask. That question should have a clear answer.

“At first, you don’t,” mom says. “In early labor, they will feel very similar. It’s important to start keeping a log of the contractions, because that’s the only way to tell the difference in the beginning.” At the looks on our faces, she continues.  “Keep a pad of paper and pen somewhere close and write down the times you feel the contraction. You’ll start to notice a pattern if it’s labor. Practice contractions do not have a pattern.”

I get up from the table and quickly find a pen and paper that will now be at Katniss’ side at all times. Mom shows us an example of how to log the contractions and explains more about them.

“As the contractions get stronger, you may not be able to walk and talk through them. This is another way to know that you’re getting close to being ready to deliver. It’s more important to pay attention to contractions than to worry about your bag of water breaking. Some women’s never break and it has to be done for them, some break before contractions even start. Don’t worry about that.”

Katniss nods. I can see in her face that she is trying to remain calm with all of the information she is getting. She doesn’t like discussing the details. It only gives her more to fear, but I need to know what to prepare for if we aren’t going to be in the medical center for the birth.

“If anything happens while I’m at the bakery please call me as soon as you’re sure.” I request.

“Of course, Peeta,” she nods. “So, do you guys think you’re having a boy or a girl?”

“We haven’t really discussed it,” Katniss says. “We just agreed not to name the baby until we meet him or her.”

“Dr. Huld offered to find out during our last ultrasound, but we don’t want to know yet.” I add. “Do you have a guess?”

“I have a guess, but I won’t tell you what I think until after the birth since you want to be surprised.” I want to ask her what she thinks, but I know if she tells us, I will dwell on her answer and let it cloud the moment when we truly do find out the sex of our baby.

After our light lunch, I take mom’s suitcases upstairs to one of the spare rooms. As I walk up the hall and pass the room that will become the baby’s, I stop and look at the space that used to simply be extra -- a room that only held guests that came and went year in and year out. Now, it was about to become a room that holds someone permanently.

The room is almost complete now -- a white rocker, crib, and clothes dresser are gathered in the center of the room away from the unfinished walls that are painted a mint green, but still bare otherwise. The baby will be spending the first couple months in our room in the matching bassinet, and it will be during that time that I will add the finishing touches to the walls. We agreed to meet the baby first before I decide on what I would paint on the walls.

What will Baby be like? Who will Baby look like? Will Baby prefer the bakery or the woods? These are questions I’ve been asking myself for weeks now and the closer we get to meeting Baby, the closer we get to beginning to find out the answers.

\---

Over the course of the next three weeks, we start what mom calls _“The Waiting Game”_.  Katniss says it’s a more polite way of saying we’re impatient, and I spend free moments when Katniss is napping on the couch to tell mom the things that calm Katniss when the baby starts to move.

“The thing she seems to like the most is running her fingers through my hair, but I don’t think that’ll work for you,” I joke.

“I’ve only been here a week and I’ve noticed her doing that a lot, even when she’s already calm,” Mom answers. “She’s got a thing for your hair, I think.” We laugh as quietly as we can, but when Katniss tells us to shut up through her sleep clogged voice, it only makes us laugh louder.

Mom takes over making lunches and helping with dinners, forcing Katniss to lie on the couch with her feet proper on a pillow, because at 38 weeks, Katniss’ feet and ankles begin to swell slightly. She spends a lot of her time taking naps on the couch and re-reading the books that Dr. Aurelius sent her all those months ago, finally moving on to the book he recently sent that deals with topics for after Baby is born.

By 39 weeks, I can see that Katniss is struggling to get comfortable in any position that she is in. She wakes up several times a night, never hesitating to tap me on the shoulder harder than she should and make sure that I am awake too. Baby’s movements aren’t as elaborate any more, but can still be seen and even cause Katniss to wince in pain from time to time. We visit Dr. Huld once a week now – I bring the truck from the bakery to pick Katniss up and take her; there’s no way she can walk to and from the medical center anymore.

On June 21st, we meet with Dr. Huld for what we hope is the last time and listen to the heartbeat that is still thumping strongly. Katniss is given an exam to see if any progress is being made, and when she is told that there hasn’t been, she looks more frustrated than I have ever seen her.

Dr. Huld also mentions that if things don’t happen by the end of the week, we are going to need to come back to the medical center and have another ultrasound and a “few other procedures” to make sure that the baby is still thriving enough to continue to let nature take its course. She mentioned fluid levels and movements and even mentioned the word caesarean if these tests don’t bring positive results.

Although Dr. Huld tries to break this to us as gently as possible, Katniss still looks as though she feels she’s done something wrong. Dr. Huld tries to assure her that this is a very common and normal thing to happen, especially with first time pregnancies, and that there is plenty of time left for labor to begin before this becomes a real concern, but I think Katniss has stopped listening.

When we wake on the morning of June 22nd, Katniss notes at breakfast that she is now overdue.

“Don’t take your due date to heart, honey,” Mom tells her from the stove. “It’s only an estimate.” This seems to only frustrate Katniss more.

By the time I get home from the bakery that afternoon, Katniss is sprawled out on the couch. She’s holding the thin notebook that she has been carrying around for the last three weeks that she has been using to log contractions. She is waving it in front of her face, and my stomach drops when I see her holding it. Thinking this is the moment -- I walk to her quietly and smile. Why didn’t they call me?

“Contractions?” I ask her gently.

“No!” she snaps. “It’s just so damn hot in here, I’m using this book to try and cool myself off!” I take a step back and hear shuffling from the kitchen indicating that mom is getting lunch ready. I turn quickly and leave the room, throwing myself down in the kitchen chair.

“She’s not happy,” mom says without turning away from the sink.

“Thanks for the warning,” I reply, running my fingers through my hair. Just then, Katniss trudges out of the living room, huffing loudly as she ignores both of us and goes into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

“She also drank an entire pitcher of lemonade,” mom adds. “She’s been like this since you left. The only time she calms down is when the baby starts to move.” She finally turns around. “But then it’s not actually calm, she’s just too scared to be mad for a little while.”

That night, Katniss is upstairs and in bed before we even finish washing the dinner dishes. When I make my way up to bed, she’s curled on her side facing the wall, but not asleep. In her hand is the notebook and she is once again moving it back and forth in front of her face.

“Still warm?” I ask, stepping into the room.

“Why is it so hot in this house?” she says. She sounds as though she can’t muster up the energy to sound mad anymore. Right now, her voice is resigned. I don’t have the heart to tell her it isn’t hot in here, and that it’s probably just her, so I tell her that I don’t know and pull the comforter from the bed, balling it up and shoving it in the corner.

“We’ll just sleep with the sheet tonight,” I tell her, walking to each of the two windows and pulling back the curtains. “And we’ll keep the curtains open, maybe we can get a cross breeze.”

“Thank you,” she whispers before turning to watch me as I slip into bed.

“This will be over soon,” I remind her. “You’re only one day past your due date.”

“I don’t want to have to go back to Dr. Huld and have all of that work done to make sure it’s still alright for me to continue carrying the baby,” Katniss confesses.

“Well let’s not think about that right now. Let’s just take it one day at a time.” I say. I reach out and tickle her shoulder and upper arm. She smiles as closes her eyes. “Just get some rest.” It’s not until I can tell her breathing has evened out and she is asleep that I stop tickling her arm and allow myself to sleep too.

The next morning, when my alarm goes off at 4am, I open my eyes to see Katniss sitting up against the headboard. At this point, it’s not unusual for her to be awake even before the alarm. What’s unusual is that she did not wake me up like she normally does. I inspect her face and notice she’s staring straight ahead at the wall. In her hand, the notebook.

“Are you still hot?” I ask her. She shakes her head.

“No,” she says, finally breaking the focus she had on the wall and looking at me. “I think I’m in labor.”

 


	11. The 23rd of June

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: FINALLY! The birth of the baby! That means there is only one chapter left before the epilogue. I cannot believe that I'm nearing the end of this story. It'll be bittersweet when I post that epilogue. 
> 
> Enjoy!

“Katniss, why didn’t you wake me up?!” Peeta yells, jumping from the bed and pulling a t-shirt from his dresser. He pulls it over his head before coming to sit down on the bed near my feet. “Have you been having contractions?” He asks, trying to keep his voice even. At my nod, he lets out a sigh. “When did they start?”

“They woke me up at around 2:30,” I reply, handing him the notebook. He gets up and turns the light on before trying to read what I’ve been writing in the dark. “I wanted to be sure.”

“They’ve never been strong enough to take you up before,” Peeta starts. “I’m going to get your mother.” He turns and leaves quickly – I hear him knock loudly on the door of the room my mother is in, but when the door is pulled open, I can’t make out what they’re whispering.

Peeta returns less than a minute later, with my mother following behind him. She has the notebook in her hand now and a polite smile on her face.

“The contractions woke you up?” She asks, sitting down at the end of the bed. I am just getting ready to answer when another one hits. These are nothing like the practice contractions that I’ve been having for the last few weeks. I squeeze my eyes shut and nod at my mother. “Is that one right now?” She’s silent when I nod again, waiting for it to pass. When I open my eyes I see her writing in the notebook.

“Is it labor?” I ask.

“I can’t say,” she shakes her head. “The contractions are coming every 15 minutes consistently, and you seemed to be pretty uncomfortable just now.”

“Very uncomfortable,” I correct her. I look over her shoulder and see Peeta standing in the doorway, shuffling his weight from foot to foot as though he’s unsure of what to do. Our eyes lock, and I pat the bed – he comes and sits down, taking my hand.

“I’ll have to examine you,” my mother says. “You’re okay with that, right?”

“I wouldn’t have asked you to do this if I wasn’t,” I remind her.

“Alright,” she nods. “Take off everything but your shirt. Peeta? Can you get the large, brown suitcase from my room?”

“Sure,” he nods, swiftly moving from the bed and out of the room in a flash.

“You have to keep him occupied, he’s going to start thinking he’s not doing anything if you don’t,” I warn her.

“Don’t worry,” she smiles. “I’ve got it covered. Let’s just check you first.” Peeta returns with the suitcase, and my mother opens it up, grabbing a box of gloves and pulling out a pair. The room is quiet as she checks for signs of labor – Peeta stands next to the suitcase, waiting for his next instructions. “You said there was no dilation at the last appointment, right?”

“Right,” Peeta and I say in unison.

“Well there’s dilation now,” my mother says. “3 centimeters.”

“So it’s labor?” Peeta asks.

“Very early labor, but I think so, yes.” She nods. “Why don’t you help me get the bed prepped and then you can make your phone calls?” I give her a thankful smile as I get out of the bed and wait while they strip it of everything, covering the mattress with a large padded sheet, and dressing it with the extra sheets my mother told us to buy weeks ago. She sets down a smaller padded sheet on my side of the bed and tells me to lie back down.

It suddenly hits me that I am in labor, and for a brief moment, I can feel relief wash over me. Relief that I didn’t have to go back to Dr. Huld and get tests to see if I could still safely continue the pregnancy, relief that we’ve made it this far, and relief that this would be over soon, but it is short lived. All too soon I feel like I can’t breathe. Peeta notices immediately.

“What’s wrong? Another contraction?” He asks. I shake my head and he moves to me, grabbing my hand. “It’s alright, Katniss. Everything is going to be fine. I’m going to go call Hakan and tell him I won’t be at the bakery today, and then I’ll go tell Haymitch – he should be awake now. Just relax.” He kisses my hand before walking out of the room, and my mother speaks up.

“I can’t sooth you the way he does,” she says. “But try not to worry so much. Everything is alright.”

“Were you ever scared?” I ask her. She gives me a puzzled look at first, but after a few seconds, she nods.

“Of course I was. Especially with you,” she admits.

“Why?”

“Because you were my first. It felt like it didn’t matter what I knew about pregnancy and labor, when it came to me being the pregnant one, everything I knew was wrong.”

“But you weren’t, right?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “But like you, I thought I would be delivering a dead baby, or that everything I did was wrong. Look at you now, though. I was very wrong, wasn’t I?”

“I guess so,” I smile.

“I may not have been there for you and your sister when it mattered most, and I’ll go to my grave hating myself for that, but I hope you know how much I cherish both of you.”

“I know,” I mutter. Because for the first time in my life, I do. I try to think of what I would do if Peeta died. The idea of it before was unimaginable, but now that we’re about to have a child the thought is even more terrifying. Trying to pick up the pieces and go on after losing the person that makes you better than you are when you’re alone must have felt like the most impossible task to my mother, and while I’ll never be ok with what she did and did not do for me and Prim, I at least now understand what my father’s death did to her, and could possibly do to me one day.

“Haymitch is downstairs,” Peeta says, walking back into the room. “I told him he didn’t have to come over yet, but he wouldn’t listen.” He slips back into bed next to me and kisses my temple. “How are you?”

“I’m ok for now,” I tell him honestly. Knowing my mother was scared too really helped put me at ease.

“Get rest, both of you,” my mother says. I look up to see she’s now standing in the doorway, a smile on her face as she looks at us. “There is still a long way to go, better sleep while you can. I’ll go talk to Haymitch. If anything changes, come get me. I’ll be back to check on you in a little while.”

The next seven hours proceed without fanfare. The contractions come every 15 minutes like clockwork, Peeta logs them in the notebook, my mother peeks in to check on us, and we sleep.

I hear my mother come in and ask Peeta how things are. He tells her that the last two contractions were only 10 minutes apart, and notes that it’s noon. I keep my eyes closed and say nothing, already feeling like I’ve had enough of the interruptions, logging, and attention.

“Haymitch is still downstairs,” I hear my mother whisper. “I told him to go home and sleep, it won’t be for a while yet, but he wouldn’t go.”

“Make him some lunch,” I say, with my eyes still closed. I don’t hear my mother answer, but know she left when I hear the door click shut.

“I thought you were asleep,” Peeta says.

“I am just trying to relax and stay calm,” I answer.

“You’re doing a good job,” Peeta assures me, lying back down. I turn my head and open one eye. He’s lying on his back with the notebook on his chest, and his hands crossed over it, staring at the ceiling.

“Have you slept?” I ask.

“A little,” he nods. “But mostly I’ve just been watching you to make sure you’re resting instead of stressing. I can tell when you’re about to tell me you’re having a contraction, because you wince just slightly before you open your eyes.” He’s still staring at the ceiling as he talks, but finally turns to me with sad eyes. “You don’t regret this, do you?”

“No,” I tell him. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t be scared of this or the future.”

“What scares you about the future?”

“What if I become my mother?” I say.

“You won’t,” Peeta answers firmly.

“You can’t say that. What if you…”

“Don’t,” he cuts me off. “It won’t happen.”

“But how can you be sure?” I ask. “You have no idea what will happen to either one of us.”

“So why worry about it now?” He points out.

I say nothing in return, because he’s right. It’s pointless to worry about something that may not happen. The thought of losing Peeta too soon is one I’ve had to deal with too many times already, so I stop and close my eyes again, trying to fall back to sleep before I’ll be in too much pain to do so later.

\---

“That one was only 3 minutes,” Peeta says. He sounds nervous as he bolts off of the bed and heads to the door. “I’ll go show your mom this,” he nods and heads out the door, leaving me there with the knowledge that the space between my last two contractions was only three minutes, and it was much more painful than the others have been all day.

I look over to the clock and see it’s just after 2:00pm; I’ve been at this for almost 12 hours now. Before Peeta comes back with my mother, I have another contraction. I squeeze my eyes shut and grip the bed sheet where Peeta’s hand should be. They walk in the door and notice the expression on my face.

“That was three minutes again,” Peeta says looking back and forth from the clock to the notebook.

“I’m going to examine you again, okay, Katniss?” I nod at my mother and she grabs another pair of gloves. “5 centimeters,” she says when she’s finished. “You’re halfway there.”

“That’s it?” I ask, disappointed.

“You’ve made progress, and that’s important,” she reminds me. “This is where it’s going to get difficult, so be thankful you had all that time to rest earlier.”

“I need to walk around,” I say suddenly, sitting up. Peeta rushes to the side of the bed and grabs my hand when I stand up.

“We’ll walk up and down the hallway,” Peeta suggests. I nod and he helps me into a pair of lounge pants before we exit the bedroom. The hallway isn’t very long, but we make our way down the length of it slowly. The pressure on my lower half has increased considerably, but the walking seems to help.

Peeta stands on my left, his right hand on the small of my back, rubbing gently as we tread the short length of the hallway. His left hand crosses over his stomach, gripping my hand to keep me steady. We walk back and forth, without words several times before another contraction stops me in my tracks. Peeta turns and puts his body in front of mine as I lean forward and rest my head on my chest. His arms move around to rub my back as the contraction continues, so strong it makes my legs feel like they’re going to give out. I wrap my arms around his neck and let my body go slack.

“It hurts,” I grouse, once the contraction finally stops. 

“I can tell,” Peeta replies. “Want to go back to bed?”

“Not yet,” I shake my head. “Let’s keep going a little more.”

We move back to our original positions and continue shuffling up the hall in silence – we have to stop 3 more times while I wait out contractions, and when it feels like I can no longer stand up, even after the contractions have subsided, I know it’s time to go back to bed.

I lie down on my side and curl up, and Peeta slinks in behind me, molding his body around mine while lacing his fingers through mine.

“Squeeze when it hurts,” he instructs.

“Okay,” I nod, closing my eyes. I know I won’t fall asleep, but I’m not trying anymore.

“You’re doing great,” Peeta says a little while later.

“I haven’t done anything yet,” I remind him.

“You’ve been in labor since 2:30 this morning; you’ve done a lot just to get to this point,” he says encouragingly.

“It’s not like I have a choice.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he argues. “I’m proud of you.”

I look at the clock and see it’s just after 4:00pm. I’ve been at this for almost 14 hours now, and even though I won’t tell Peeta, especially after he’s just told me he’s proud of me, I can feel my composure slipping quickly. With each contraction the thought of delivering a child that is sick or dead becomes more and more real to me, and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hide it.

\---

I feel the pop and the warmth before I even realize what’s going on. My immediate reaction is to jump up, but the discomfort stops me before I get too far. By the time Peeta realizes something is wrong, I’ve swung my legs over to dangle off the side of the bed. My pants are soaked through, and I realize immediately what just happened.

“My water bag broke,” I tell Peeta before he even asks.

Without a word he dashes from the bed and runs to get my mother, returning not even a minute later. She rifles through her suitcase and pulls out another padded sheet and begins to unfold it.

“Get cleaned up, I’ll take care if the bed,” she tells me. “Just put on a fresh shirt.”

“Come on,” Peeta says, hoisting me up from the bed. He walks with me slowly, stopping to grab one of his old t-shirts I wear for sleeping from a drawer in my dresser. He continues to shuffle me in the direction of the bathroom, stopping once when another contraction starts.

He sets me down on the toilet, and grabs two washcloths from under the sink. He douses the first and brings it over, gently pulling me up before moving down to pull the drenched pants from my body without a word. I put my hands on his shoulders as I step out of them, and he takes the wash cloth and places it on my thigh, it’s warm when it hits my skin and so relaxing. He drags it up, down and around my thigh, down my leg, and to my feet before moving to the next one to repeat the action.

“You’re shaking,” he says, looking at me sadly when he’s stood back up. Before I can answer him, I feel another contraction begin to grip my body – I hunch over, throwing all of my weight on Peeta, digging my fingers into his back while sobbing into his shoulder. “Shhh, we’re almost there.”

When the contraction subsides, I pull back and stand on my own again, and Peeta peels the shirt from my body, balling it up and dropping it quickly before putting the fresh shirt over my head easily. The amount of pressure I’m feeling is the worst yet, and I can barely stand it.

“I have to push,” I tell him, shaking my head.

“No, no,” Peeta says, grabbing my hand. “Not yet.” He pulls me out of the bathroom as quickly as I’ll allow and leads me into the bedroom. “She says she has to push,” he calls out when we enter. My mother looks up from the suitcase she was hovering over.

“Not yet, I need to check you again,” she says, pointing for me to lie back down. I notice Peeta disappear back into the bathroom while my mother checks me again. “9 centimeters, you’re almost there.”

Peeta returns a minute later with the other wash cloth he pulled from the under the sink. He gets back into bed with me, folding it and placing it over my forehead. This one is cold and feels even more relaxing than the warm one did.

\---

“I really have to push now,” I insist. The pressure is unbearable and I’m set to push whether my mother likes it or not. My body has been reduced to uncontrollable trembling and the feeling of nausea has been getting harder and harder to ignore.

My mother is coming at me again with a fresh pair of gloves and she doesn’t even have to warn me this time, I already know it’s time for another exam. She’s quick about it, pulling back and looking up with a smile.

“Sit up Katniss,” she says. “Peeta, sit with your back against the headboard and sit cross legged. You can do that right? With your…”

“Yes, it’s fine,” Peeta nods, moving behind me quickly and sitting as he was instructed.

The rapid fire pace of the contractions makes it feel as though I can’t breathe anymore, and the shaking has gotten so bad that I can barely sit up. Once Peeta is positioned behind me, my mother nods at him and he grabs my shoulders, pulling me back to rest against his chest.

“Katniss, you can push when you feel like you have to,” my mother says. She sits on the bed and pushes my feet up so that my knees are pointed at the ceiling. Peeta rests his chin on my shoulder and kisses the side of my face.

“Here we go,” he says. He extends his arms in front of him, grabbing my hands with his. “Remember to squeeze them.”

With the next contraction that washes over me, I feel the urge to push again and don’t hold back this time. I squeeze Peeta’s hands as hard as I can, trying to push the thoughts and visions of every horrible thing that could go wrong to the back of my mind. Peeta whispers in my ear that I can do this, but I’m not so sure.

“I can’t do it,” I cry, letting go of his hands and pushing myself up.

“You’re doing perfectly fine, Katniss,” my mother says.

“But what if something’s wrong?”

“You can’t think about that right now,” her voice is hard. “Lie back down and take Peeta’s hands again.”

“I’m going to vomit,” I warn her, and without even flinching, she reaches over and grabs plastic basin from a small pile of supplies she’s set out on the bed and settles it under my chin.

“Keep that there,” she says. “The sooner you cooperate, the sooner you meet your baby.” She nods at me and gives a half smile, coaxing me to get back into position and push when I’m ready.

I repeat the pushing process over and over, losing track of time and everything but the health of my child. The shaking hasn’t stopped and I’m no longer sure if it’s from the pain or the terror that is plaguing my mind. With every contraction I see that vision from my nightmares of the heartbeat stopping, I see a new vision of my mother holding a lifeless baby, and I see Peeta blaming me for it.

When I hear his voice is my ear, I wish I could grab it and listen to it forever. I pay attention to him and only him, letting my body do as it feels as he tells me I’m almost there, that I can do this, and that he loves me.

“Don’t stop talking,” I plead with him. He keeps his head planted on my shoulder and his mouth to my ear and I focus on every word he is saying, pushing away the awful visions that had taken over my mind.

“Katniss, open your eyes,” I hear my mother say. I start with one eye, looking down to see my mother focusing on something. “Just one more push should do it,”

“Did you hear that?” Peeta says, elation coating his words. “One more push, Katniss.” I squeeze his hand tighter as the contraction takes over once again and I squeeze my eyes shut one last time and give everything I have left with one final push.

It happens so quickly, it takes a second to realize that the baby is out and on my chest. Peeta lets go of one of my hands and reaches out, touching the head full of dark hair that I can just begin to see when I hear the scream of the baby.

I place my hand on the baby’s back, feeling the vibrations of the screams and the familiar movements of breathing and I feel a sense of joy claim my body that I haven’t felt in a long time.

“A girl,” my mother says, standing above us -- a girl.

I grip her tighter when Peeta moves from behind me and off the bed; I watch as my mother opens a package and pulls out something that looks like scissors and hands them to Peeta.

“Cut right here, between the clamps,” my mother instructs. She nods as Peeta cuts through the umbilical cord in two tries.

The baby is still crying when my mother comes with a towel and tries to pluck her from my chest, but I hang on tight.

“I have to clean her, Katniss, and make sure everything is alright.” At those words I loosen my grip and let her take the baby, who is still screaming. She cradles the baby in her arms and smiles at me. “I’ll be quick; you can have her back as soon as we get you cleaned up too.

All I can do is focus on the wails of my daughter, and it doesn’t alarm me because I know it means she’s alright. Peeta stands above her, watching as my mother washes her, and chuckles at the way she seizes up when the warm water is poured over her tiny body.

My mother lifts the baby up, wrapped in a towel and gently places her in Peeta’s arms. He stands, gently bouncing as my mother begins to clean up the bed and myself. Soon the baby’s screams begin to subside and the only thing I hear is Peeta murmuring things to her that I can’t quite distinguish.

When the bed sheets and I have been changed, my mother helps me back into bed before nodding at Peeta. He gets into bed once again, but this time with the baby in his arms. As soon as he is settled he is giving her to me. She squirms for a second but seems to calm as she settles into the smaller crooks of my arms.

 “You did it,” he says, squeezing my arm. I smile back at him, and shake my head.

“We did it.”

 

 


	12. "We" Is Now Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Here it is, the final chapter of Everything Grows! Even though there is still an epilogue to write, this concludes the actual story. I want to thank everyone who has read and reviewed. It is your interest and dedication to the story that got it this far.

I can’t stop looking at her. So small, but so perfect; she eased her tiny frame into Katniss’ arms, swaddled tight in the towel her grandmother wrapped her in. She has been content ever since, making delicate, high-pitched sounds when she exhales.

“She sounds like she’s snoring,” I note with a smile. Her small mouth is slack, but every so often I notice her bottom lip tremble when she inhales – Katniss notices it too. The light chuckle she allows to escape is such a relief to hear.

“Do you think we’ll ever sleep again?” Katniss asks, staring down at the baby in her arms. I observe the way her dark hair – the same color as Katniss’ – overlaps the top of her ear.

“Probably not,” I reply. “I bet the sleep you got earlier today is the most you’ll get for a while.” There is a light knock on the doorframe and I look up to see mom standing there, looking at us.

“Katniss are you comfortable?” she asks. I motion for her to come in and she walks across the room, holding a glass of water and a bottle of pills.

“I’m alright for now,” Katniss nods.

“Well here is some water and pain medicine if you start to feel uncomfortable,” mom says. The baby begins to fuss again, squirming in Katniss’ arms and crinkling her eyes shut before letting out a high pitched wail. “She’s probably hungry. Has the medical center instructed you on nursing?”

“No,” Katniss shakes her head. She looks worried. “Was that something I should have done?”

“It’s fine,” mom smiles. “I can teach you.”

I sit up then, moving down to the bottom half of the bed as mom comes to sit down next to Katniss and the baby, who is now crying loudly again.

“She’s just hungry?” Katniss asks. “Are you sure that’s all it is?”

“She’s an hour old and she still hasn’t eaten, and that’s a hungry cry,” mom answers loudly to be heard over the screams. “Now, why don’t you try nursing her on your side?”

“On my side?”

“Just lie down on your side and put the baby next to you,” mom begins to explain. “I always nursed you lying down on my side with you close to me -- it was when you were the calmest.”

Katniss reluctantly sets the baby down on the bed and scoots down to face her, resting on her side. Without being told she lifts her shirt up and waits for her next instruction.

“Now pull her close to you, and keep your hand on her back to keep her on her side.” Katniss does as she’s told, positioning the baby flush with her body.

Mom explains to Katniss how to get the baby to latch on, and Katniss lets another laugh slip when the baby first does it. It causes her to stop nursing, and Katniss apologizes for laughing. I’m not sure if she’s apologizing to her mother or the baby.

“It’s alright, it’s a strange sensation at first,” mom assures her. “Just try it again.” She watches as Katniss silently goes through the steps her mother walked her through before and gets the baby to latch on. “Good job.” She gets up from the bed and slants her head in Katniss’ direction, silently telling me to go back to the spot I was in before she came in. “I’ll be back in a little while to check in.”

“Wait,” Katniss says. The sudden boom of her voice scares the baby, her small arm shoots into the air and she stiffens before beginning to cry again. Katniss seems to lose her train of thought and immediately turns her attention to the baby, going back through the steps to get her to latch on once more; when she is confident she’s got it, she speaks again in a softer tone. “How will I know when she’s done nursing?”

“Let her guide you. If she stops only to start crying again, she’s not done.”

“Okay.” Katniss looks down at the baby, and then back to her mother. “Can you tell Haymitch he can come up here when I’m done nursing her?”

“Sure,” mom says with a smile. “I was just going to make him some dinner. Do either of you want me to bring something up for you?”

“I’m fine,” I answer, looking to Katniss.

“No,” she replies, not taking her eyes off the baby. Mom smiles at her again and then nods to me before leaving the room. I know what the nod meant. Things are alright now; Katniss is alright.

“Do you think Haymitch will come up here?” I ask, lying down on my side. The baby is now between us as she nurses, and finally Katniss shifts her gaze from the baby to me before she shrugs.

“I don’t know, but if he wants to see her he’ll have to,” she replies. “She’s not leaving this room tonight.”

“He waited all day,” I remind her.

“I know,” Katniss says. She brushes her thumb over the baby’s cheek. “I just want to keep her right here for a while. He can come up here.”

“I’ll make sure he does,” I tell her. We fall silent then, and our eyes fall back down to our daughter. She is still nursing; her eyes are shut tightly and her arms are pulled up to her chest while her tiny hands hang in front of her. “She looks like a bunny with her hands like that,” I laugh.

“Look at you, Bunny,” Katniss whispers, smiling. At the sound, the baby finally stops nursing and yawns. “Do you think she’s done?”

“I guess we’ll find out.” We wait a few minutes, staring at her to see if she’ll start to fuss again, but instead she opens her eyes wide and stares. “She’s probably wondering what we’re staring at.”

“Look at her eyes, Peeta,” Katniss murmurs. I shift forward and look down and see two big blue eyes staring back at me.

“Do you think they’ll change? Didn’t the book say most babies’ eyes change color after birth?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Katniss shakes her head. “But those are your eyes.” She sounds so overcome when she says it, that I can’t help but let myself revel in the beauty of the moment. It’s at this moment that it finally hits me – we have a daughter, and she’s perfect, but there’s one thing missing.

“I think Baby Bunny needs a name,” I whisper. “Do you have anything in mind?”

Katniss is quiet for a few minutes, staring down at the baby intensely while brushing the pad of her thumb over her forehead. Finally, she mutters two words.

“Beautiful Zuri.”

“Zuri,” I test the name. “Do you like that?” Katniss nods.

“When Dr. Aurelius sent the books from The Capitol, he also sent a book of names,” She explains.

“Why didn’t you show me that one?”

“When you first came home, it didn’t feel like the right time to show you a book of baby names,” she says. “I didn’t think it would help you, but I read through it a lot and I saw the name Zuri, and I read that it meant beautiful, and when I look at her, that’s all I can see.”

“I like it,” I reply. “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.” I set my finger on the palm of her tiny hand, and she closes her own fingers around it. “I think she likes it too.”

“Zuri,” Katniss says again, louder this time. “She looks like a Zuri.”

“Then Zuri it is,” I announce. Katniss smiles and begins to situate the towel that Zuri was wrapped in, exposing her tiny body that is in nothing but a diaper.

“We should put clothes on her,” Katniss says. “Maybe she’s getting cold.” I smile at her concern.

“I’ll get something from her room and tell Haymitch he can come see her now,” I offer, pulling my finger from Zuri’s grasp.

“Get the white pajamas,” Katniss calls after me. “The one from the basket Effie sent, with the frogs on them. And a clean diaper.”

I leave the room and head for Zuri’s nursery, opening the drawer of her dresser that we designated for pajamas. I find the one piece outfit quickly – it has small frogs dotting it from head to toe, complete with a place for her feet that look like green frogs smiling; before I leave the room, I swipe a diaper and packet of wet wipes from the pile of Capitol items that Effie has been sending us for weeks.

When I leave the room, I make a quick trip downstairs and find mom in the kitchen washing dishes.

 “Haymitch is in the living room,” she says. “There’s left over food for you and Katniss if you get hungry.”

“Thanks,” I smile, before heading into the living room.

“Hey,” I announce, letting him know I’m in there. “You can come up and see her if you want.” He looks down at the outfit in my hand and then back up to me with a smirk on his face.

“So that’s your life now, huh?” He asks. “Clothes with frogs on them?” I chuckle at his observation and hold up the tiny outfit.

“Yeah, I guess it is.” I motion for him to follow me as I turn around and head back toward the staircase; he hoists himself off the couch and silently joins me.

“You know that’s pretty impressive what she did,” Haymitch says behind me.

“What?”

“Katniss’ mother,” he says. “Delivers a baby, and then makes dinner for everyone.”

“I guess I never really thought about it like that,” I reply. He’s right, it is impressive – I’m not sure I will ever be able to thank her enough for any of it.

I walk back into the bedroom and sit down on the bed, noticing that Haymitch has stopped in the doorway. Katniss has Zuri lying in the middle of the bed on top of the towel that was once wrapped around her, and I hand her the pajamas and clean diaper; she looks over to the doorway and see Haymitch.

“Hey, Sweetheart,” he says moving forward when Katniss motions for him to come in. His voice is so soft and so tender; the last time I remember hearing him talk like that was the night of our toasting. He stands at the foot of the bed, looking at Zuri who is fast asleep on the towel.

“You can sit,” I tell him. He nods and sits on the corner of the bed, keeping his eyes on Zuri.

“You can hold her after I change her,” Katniss says. She sets the pajamas down on the bed and then opens the old diaper, setting it down next to her.

“Have you ever changed a diaper?” I ask.

“No, but it can’t be that tough,” Katniss answers with a shrug. I watch as she cleans the baby with a wipe and lifts her legs, setting her back down on the clean diaper, pulling the front up over her and securing it closed.

She then picks Zuri up, setting her down on top of the outfit I brought in. She pulls one arm through, and I take the other, doing the same with her feet before Katniss zips up the outfit and picks Zuri back up.

She moves Zuri in Haymitch’s direction, and he stiffens a bit, looking nervous at the idea of holding her.

“Just support her head with your elbow,” I advise. “And cradle her, just like Katniss is doing.” Odds are Haymitch has never paid attention to a baby this small – why would he?

Katniss transfers Zuri into Haymitch’s arms and though he looks uncomfortable, he keeps her cradled close to him.

“Why didn’t I think she’d be this small?” Haymitch asks. Like Katniss, he speaks while staring down at her. She begins to squirm at the sound of his voice, stiffening her legs. Her eyes pop open and she blinks a few times before squinting up at the face in front of her. “Hey, Bright Eyes.” He looks up at me then and nods his head in approval. “Those are your eyes, kid.” He looks back down at Zuri then. “But Sweetheart’s hair.”

“Her name is Zuri,” I tell him.

“Zuri, huh?” The longer he holds her, the more comfortable he seems to become. “You’ve got a nice set up here, Zuri. Make sure you let them know who’s boss, they can be stubborn sometimes.”

The room grows silent after a while; Haymitch finally seems content with Zuri in his arms, and she doesn’t seem to have a problem with him holding her, either.

“I’m going to teach her to call you uncle Haymitch when she starts to talk,” I tell him. He rolls his eyes at me, but when he looks back down to Zuri in his arms, I can see the slightest hint of a smirk on his face.

“Alright,” Haymitch says to Zuri. “I’m going to give you to your dad now; you three need your rest.” He shifts toward me and sets the baby in my arms, then stands from the bed. “You guys did a good job,” he says before walking out the door.

“I don’t think he likes her very much,” I joke. Katniss stifles a laugh and nods.

“He clearly hates her,” she replies.

Mom knocks on the door some time later, softly padding across the room after I wave her in. Katniss is just finishing up nursing Zuri again.

“You’re getting the hang of that, quick,” mom says to Katniss. “I knew you would.” She sits down on the bed to look at Zuri. “Hey, baby girl,” she coos.

“We named her Zuri,” Katniss tells her. “It means beautiful.”

“Very fitting,” mom says trailing her fingers across the wisps of hair at the nape of Zuri’s neck. Katniss doesn’t ask before moving Zuri to her mother, setting the baby in her arms just as she begins to hiccup. Mom laughs at the sound. “Did you eat too much, Zuri?”

“I used to feel her hiccup a lot,” Katniss says. “Maybe that’s her thing.”

“Our daughter’s claim to fame is that she’s gassy,” I deadpan.

“She’s cute too,” mom adds. “Look at this little nose.” She sets her finger on the tip of Zuri’s nose and rubs it lightly; causing Zuri’s to twist her face and open her eyes at the sensation.

“Do you think her eyes will change color as she gets older?” Katniss asks. “I read that they can change.”

“I’m sure they’ll change a little, but I don’t think they’ll change much,” mom answers. She hesitates, opening her mouth as though she wants to say something, but isn’t sure if she should.

“What?” Katniss asks.

“I was just thinking that Prim’s eyes weren’t even this blue when she was born,” she explains. “I thought she’d have gray eyes too for a while, but then they changed.”

“Really?” Katniss asks. She sounds interest, but also a little sad at the mention of her sister.

“There’s so much I’ve never gotten to tell you,” mom says, her voice just as sad.

“We have time for that,” Katniss assures her. “I want to know.”

“Thank you,” mom says. It’s a simple statement, but her tone indicates there is much more behind it, and Katniss can hear it too. She nods at her mother and traces Zuri’s ear with her fingers. “I will leave you three alone now, I’m sure you want to sleep, it’s getting late.” She gives Zuri back to Katniss and moves from the bed, grabbing the bassinet from the corner of the room and wheeling it over to Katniss’ side of the bed. “For when you want to put her down.”

“Thanks, mom,” Katniss smiles.

When she’s left the room, Katniss moves back up against the headboard, resting Zuri on her legs with her hands under the baby’s head.

“Come closer,” Katniss says to me. I move over and set myself against the headboard as well, shoulder to shoulder with Katniss.

“I’m really happy,” I tell her, turning my head and placing a kiss to her temple. Katniss nods at my statement and runs her thumbs over the sides of Zuri’s head.

“So am I,” she says. “For a while, I wasn’t sure, but now that she’s here, I already can’t imagine what it’d be like without her.”

“We can do this. You know we can do this,” I tell her.

“I know. We have each other,” she repeats the words I’ve told her countless times, and I nod.

“Your grandpas would be so in love with you,” I say to Zuri. “I think you would have even made your other grandma smile.” I look over to Katniss and see a tear slide down her cheek. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned our fathers so soon. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, kissing her temple once more.

“I wish she could have met them,” Katniss says.

“We’ll tell her all about them one day,” I assure her. “She’ll know who they are.”

We sit in silence for a while, content to stare at the sleeping newborn. My stomach growls, but I ignore it – I have no interest in eating right now; when I ask Katniss, she doesn’t either.

“Can you help me put her in the bassinet?” she asks. I get out of bed and take the baby from her arms, rocking her for a few extra seconds before I set her down. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Katniss struggling to get up from the edge of the bed; I put my hand out for her to grab on to and pull her up. I help her walk the rest of the way to the bathroom, but close the door to give her privacy to wash up. While I wait for her to finish up, I change into fresh pajamas, check on Zuri in the bassinet and take a pain pill from the bottle for Katniss.

We repeat the steps to get her back into bed and I hand the glass of water and pill to her – she takes it without protest.

“Thank you,” she says, setting the glass of water back down on the table next to her.

“Are you ready to try and get some rest before Zuri’s ready to nurse again?” I ask.

“Yes.” She lies down and I grab the comforter from where I threw it the night before, throwing it on top of the bed before climbing in and pulling it over us.

“You were amazing today,” I tell her as she nestles herself close to my chest. “Now get some rest.”

Last summer, the frustration of not getting pregnant was beginning to consume us. This summer, we have the very thing we were trying so hard for, healthy and beautiful. And even though the journey to get here was riddled with frustration, fear, and unknowns, we still did it, together. And Zuri was worth it.

THE END


	13. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Well, here it is. The absolute end of Everything Grows. It's kind of a bittersweet moment. I am sad to see it go, but I am so incredibly proud of myself for seeing this through to the end. I once again want to thank everyone who has supported me from beginning to end, everyone that has reviewed and stuck with me, and everyone that has sent messages and discussed things with me on Tumblr.
> 
> Thank you all once again.

Three years and I still feel like I can’t get home fast enough to see my family every day. My strides are large as I try to cover as much ground as I can between the bakery and The Victor’s Village. The air still has the feel of summer despite the fact that the first day of fall is just about a week away, and by the time I spot the quaint home with the garden, there is a thin sheen of sweat covering my brow.

Hakan won’t let me come into the bakery before 8am anymore, not since Zuri was born. He tells me that I should spend time with my family in the morning, instead of slipping out before they are even awake, and he refuses my attempts to reason with him by telling him it is my bakery and I need to be there.

Even though I agreed with him, it was still my bakery. I could never expect my employees to come into work while I stayed home. I never felt that I would be able to enjoy the luxury of lying in bed with my wife every morning, not rushing to get showered and changed before having to run out the door to make it to town in time to open the bakery. I never thought I’d have the pleasure of hearing the soft sounds of tiny toddler feet plodding along the hallway, and the gentle knock she makes before bounding into the room and jumping in bed between us.

Zuri has changed everything, but in ways that I never thought possible. That first week after she was born, Katniss barely stopped holding her, and rarely moved her eyes from her tiny face. She would sit in the corner of the living room in the rocker I temporarily moved from Zuri’s room, holding her in her arms, eyes downcast, staring.

_“I can’t believe it’s been a week already,” I say, glancing over to Katniss in the rocker. She’s lost to the rest of the world, but Haymitch is with me, shaking his head and smiling wryly at the vision of Katniss fawning quietly over our brand new daughter._

_“Before you know it she’ll be taking over the bakery when you get too old to run it,” Haymitch comments. “And I’ll be dead.”_

_I ignore his commentary and look back to Katniss. She’s lightly ghosting her fingers across Zuri’s forehead, humming almost inaudibly as she rocks back and forth. Her head turns to the window next to her as the curtains blow out with a breeze that comes through, and she looks up at me questioningly._

_“Do you think the breeze is too cold for her?” She asks. I have to smile. She has been making comments like this all week, though I’ve been no better. She had her own laugh at me two days ago when I asked her if the wet wipe was too cold to use on Zuri._

_“I think she’s alright. It is almost July and not exactly cold outside,” I assure her._

_“Maybe I should get a blanket just in case?” I shrug at her question, leaving the decision up to her. When Zuri sneezes, I get up from the couch without a word or a look and find her blanket draped over a chair at the kitchen table, bringing it back for Katniss. Even though mom said that sneezes aren’t anything to worry about, she is in town right now and not here to remind Katniss of this fact. Right now, it just seems easier to get the blanket._

_When I return with the blanket, and drape it over Zuri, Katniss looks up at me. I’m surprised to see tears in her eyes. I’m just about to ask her what’s wrong when she speaks up._

_“Look at what we made, Peeta.”_

_I don’t know what to say. It’s unlike Katniss to say something like this, and I know that it’s the events of the last week, and the hormone changes mom and the books warned us about. I nod at her and smile warmly, placing my hand over the lazy braid that hangs down her back. Our eyes are immediately trained on Haymitch when we hear him scoff._

_“What corny romance novel did you steal that one from, Sweetheart?”_

_Katniss is up and out of the rocker, and has the baby placed in my arms before I can even register what’s happened. I only realize it just as she bolts out of the room._

_“You shouldn’t have said that, Haymitch,” I groan, shaking my head. I’m just about to take Katniss’ spot in the rocker when she reappears in the archway – my boot is out of her hand within seconds and I only hear Haymitch’s pained howl and the sound of the boot hitting the floor._

_Her body relaxes just long enough to gently pry Zuri from my arms before she storms off and up the stairs. I don’t speak until I hear the bedroom door slam. Blood is pouring from Haymitch’s nose and I can only hope that mom will be back from town soon to tell us if it’s broken._

_“Get in the kitchen,” I tell him angrily._

_He stands over the sink as I run a kitchen rag under warm water. The only thing I can do is look at him with disdain when he begins to laugh._

_“It’s good to see that Sweetheart still can’t take a joke,” he winces after a moment -- the pressure the laugh caused must’ve hurt his nose._

_“It’s more than that, Haymitch,” I retort. “Would you walk into the woods and taunt a mother bear with her cubs?”_

_“Of course not,” Haymitch replies like it’s the stupidest question I’ve ever asked him._

_“Well it’s the same thing there.” I slap the rag into his hand and leave the kitchen, turning back to tell him one last thing. “Wait for Mrs. Everdeen to get back so she can check out your face, and don’t get blood on my floor.”_

I hear her tiny voice chirp when she hears the front door open, and I remember when she first started talking. For a while, she seemed to have her own language. We understood her, but were never sure where she came up with some of the things she’d say.

She would toddle between me and Katniss as we walked around the bank of the lake, pointing at the ground saying, “Fro rock-rock.” It took us almost five minutes to realize that she wanted to throw a rock into the lake. When we would cut up a water fowl and place a few small pieces on the tray of her high chair, she’d screech about her “chick-chick”, referring to any bird or meat she saw as a chicken, including Haymitch’s geese.

But nothing will ever compare to the first time she called me “daddy”. Granted, back then it was easier for her to say “Dada”, but the sentiment was still the same. Katniss feigned irritation that Zuri didn’t say “mommy” first, but the smile on her face was just as large as mine that day, and it didn’t take Zuri long to figure out how to address Katniss as well.

From that point, until Zuri moved from her crib to a regular bed, our mornings began with a startlingly loud chorus of the words “mommy” and “daddy” courtesy of Zuri Mellark.

“Daddy!” She breaks into a heavy footed dance, her feet clomping across the hard hood. She can’t walk or move around any quieter than I can. I sweep my hands under her arms and hoist her up, settling her down on my side.

“Hey, Bunny,” I greet her. She wraps her arms around my neck and squeezes.

“Did you bring me a surprise?” she asks, smiling. I hear the sound of Katniss’ laugh from the kitchen as she peels potatoes in the sink.

“He can’t bring you a surprise every single day, Zuri,” Katniss reminds her. “Other people like cookies, too.” She wipes her hand on a towel and she walks over to us. “Did you have a good day?” she asks me as I lean down and place a chaste kiss on her lips.

“It was painless,” I nod. “And what about you two?” I ask, tickling Zuri. She screeches and squirms in my arms, but my grip on her is too tight for her to go very far.

The three of us walk back to the kitchen where Katniss resumes peeling potatoes and humming to herself.

“I helped mommy pick out the potatoes,” Zuri states proudly.

“No way!” I gasp. “I think you’re lying.”

“Nooo,” Zuri replies, shaking her head. “I did help. Didn’t I, mommy?”

“You did help, Bunny,” Katniss confirms, looking back at the two of us.

She used to be afraid of the garden. When we would bring her outside to do work, whenever we’d take her near it she would tighten her grip on whoever was holding her while hiding her face in our necks. She wouldn’t let us put her down unless it was far away from the garden. Eventually, Haymitch started coming over and entertaining her on the porch while we worked in the garden because it was too difficult to try and make sure that both Zuri and the garden were being tended to.

Now, she helps us. Picking one weed at a time, walking to and from the trash with just one thing in her hand. She does the same when we harvest. One thing at a time, never more, and falling at least a half dozen times before we are through.

“Then I am sure dinner will be extra delicious tonight,” I say. She smiles brightly in my direction.

I think I stopped breathing the first time I saw that smile. It was toothless at the time, but that didn’t stop my breath from hitching in my throat at the sight of it. I looked down at her in her bassinet and wished her good morning, as I’ve done every single day since she was born. That particular morning, however, she had her very own greeting for me – the biggest, widest grin I have ever seen in my life. It seemed to make her eyes even brighter.

“I took a nap too,” Zuri continues. “With mommy!”

“Mommy took a nap too?” I ask.

“She was very tired, daddy,” Zuri answers seriously. “We took a big, long walk!”

“Where did you go?” I ask with a smile.

“To the little store,” Zuri says. “Where my candy is.” She gets up from her chair and runs into the living room, returning a second later with a wrapped sucker in one hand and a puzzle box in the other. “I got two!” She giggles, waving the sucker in the air. “But I ate one.”

“And what did I say about that one?” Katniss asks, coming to sit at the table while the potatoes cook in the pot.

“I eat it tomorrow,” Zuri replies. Katniss nods and smiles at her. I pick Zuri up and set her on my lap.

“Let’s see your puzzle,” I say, looking at the box. “It’s a bunny!”

“Like me!” Zuri chirps. “We put it together already.”

“You did it without me?” I pretend to be upset and stick my bottom lip out in a pout. Zuri’s little hand pats my cheek.

“It’s okay, daddy,” she consoles. “Mommy helped me after she was done going potty. She went a LONG time!” I try to stifle the laugh, but it’s no use. Zuri begins to giggle with me and all Katniss can do is shake her head at us.

“That’s not nice, Zuri,” I say through laughter.

“It was important,” Zuri nods.

“What was important?”

“Mommy’s potty.” I want to laugh again at her use of words, but Katniss is standing up from the table and plucking Zuri from my lap.

“Let’s go change your outfit -- you have dirt on your shirt.” Katniss whisks Zuri upstairs, returning a little while later. Zuri is in a one piece pajama outfit, still clutching her sucker.

“You should have come to the bakery to visit when you went to the store,” I say.

“We were going to, but it looked busy, so I didn’t want to interrupt,” Katniss explains.

“We were hurrying,” Zuri adds. “Mommy had to potty.” She runs from the room then, and I can just see her plop herself down in the living room in front of her toys. Katniss shakes her head and rubs the bridge of her nose.

“She’s really stuck on that potty thing,” I laugh.

“It’s always something new, every single day,” Katniss says, sitting down at the table. “Dinner is almost done.”

“I’ll finish it up,” I offer, getting up. “You look exhausted.”

“I am,” she confirms.

“Zuri took a lot out of you today, huh?” She gives me a weak smile and nods gently.

XX

“Slow down, Zuri,” Katniss says. Zuri is shoveling mashed potatoes into her mouth at an alarmingly fast rate. “And eat your beans, too.”

“Okay, mommy,” Zuri replies through a mouth full of potatoes.

We eat in silence for a while, Katniss eats slowly, pushing her food around on her plate more than she actually is eating it, and Zuri has created a disaster on her plate.

“How about you come to the bakery with me tomorrow, Zuri?” I ask. “Mommy is very tired; we should give her a break.” Zuri nods and smiles happily.

“Mommy needs rest,” she says. “You know why?”

“No,” I smirk, curious as to what she’ll come up with. “Why?”

“Because there’s a baby in her tummy.”

Katniss’ fork hits her plate loudly, and I feel frozen in my seat.

“Zuri!” Katniss says, exasperated. She sighs loudly and pushes her hair behind her ear nervously.

“But how does a baby get in your tummy, mommy?” Zuri asks.

“Katniss?” I ask, looking at her intently. “Is that true?” She looks to Zuri -- who is gleaming at both of us – then back to me before she nods.

“I was going to tell you while we had dessert,” Katniss explains. “But I guess a certain little Bunny couldn’t keep it a secret any longer.”

I practically jump from my seat. It makes Zuri jump, but she ends up hopping off her chair too and following me around to the other side of the table where I pull Katniss from her seat and hug her.

“I’m sorry she ruined the surprise,” Katniss murmurs.

“Are you kidding?” I ask. “I don’t care how you tell me.” I reach down and pick Zuri up, and she grabs onto Katniss’ neck, squeezing her tightly. “Our baby broke the news that we’re going to have another baby? It’s perfect.” I kiss Zuri on the top of her head and scoot her over so I can find Katniss’ lips, running my hand down her cheek softly when I pull away.

“But,” Zuri interrupts, sounding frustrated.

“What’s wrong, Bunny?” Katniss asks.

“How did a baby get in your tummy, mommy?”


End file.
